


A Pair of Wrecking Balls

by okapi



Series: The Fucking Machine 'verse [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alpha Mycroft, Alpha Sherlock, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Blood and Violence, Dubious consent for heat sex, Happy Ending, Hostage Situations, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Knotting, Lestrade Whump, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Greg, Omega John Watson, Omega Verse, Oral Sex, References to Sherlock's past drug use, Restraints, Threats of Violence, Vaginal Fisting, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-20 22:53:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 19,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13727712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: Lestrade's doing just fine, thanks.Mystrade Omegaverse. Alpha Mycroft/Omega Lestrade. First heat.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _If I don't get some shelter_   
>  _Ooh yeah, I'm gonna fade away._
> 
> "[Gimme Shelter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kl6q_9qZOs)." The Rolling Stones. (1969)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the Mystrade continuation of [The Fucking Machine](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13251210/chapters/30312828), which is Alpha Sherlock/Omega John. It may be helpful to read that story first. Chapter 13 (the penultimate chapter) is when Lestrade and Mycroft run into each other.

Lestrade woke to sound.

And pain.

He shook his head sharply, trying to dispel the drug-fog that clouded his senses; he ignored the throbbing at his temples, the pounding in his ears, and listened as he’d never listened before.

The sound.

Helicopter.

Whoever the bastard was, it was unlikely he had access to a helicopter.

That meant the cavalry was on the way.

Lestrade exhaled a silent, open-mouthed gasp, but the knowledge that his nightmare might soon be over only made him more acutely aware of his pain. The parts of him that did not hurt, however, worried him more.

He had run until his lungs threatened to burst. He had run until he stumbled and fell upon the forest floor. Thrice. He had run until the adrenaline fueling his flight had lost its war with whatever drug the bastard had given him.

Sedative.

Lestrade hoped it was a sedative.

Like prey, he’d hidden, crawling into this rotten tree trunk and covering the opening with leaves, sticks, and other forest debris, the more fetid, the better.

Like a three-decades-lapsed altar boy, he’d prayed, and then quickly succumbed to stupor.

* * *

Lestrade listened.

No helicopter.

He inhaled.

Oh, fuck.

That scent.

He forced his eyes open and waited for them to adjust to the dying light beyond the log.

Boots.

No!

It didn’t make sense.

The scent! The boots!

Lestrade panicked.

Maybe the bastard _did_ have a helicopter!

Then a face appeared, the face that matched the scent.

And for the very first time since they’d met, Lestrade was pleased to see Mycroft Holmes.

* * *

“I’d hardly go on a manhunt through the Hundred Acre Woods in Saville Row oxfords, Detective Inspector,” said a cheery, drawing-room voice.

Lestrade grunted something that might have been ‘clairvoyant bastard’ as he crawled out of the log. Then he realised that he’d have to drag himself with his arms until circulation in his legs returned.

He reached the outside world, breathed in lungfuls of Alpha-scented, but nevertheless, blessedly fresh air, then pulled himself to standing using the log itself. He growled and stubbornly batted away all attempts at assistance.

“Just give me a minute,” he said. His legs seemed to be slowly, painfully coming back to life. “The bastard?”

“We have him. The injuries that you inflicted were not fatal.”

Lestrade managed a half-smile at the tone of disappointment. He finally got to his feet.

“There are doctors waiting.”

Oh, fuck.

From one nightmare to another. But wasn’t that Lestrade’s lot? Or so history suggested.

He collapsed onto the log. He heard his name being shouted in the distance. His panic grew stronger as the shouts grew louder, nearer.

“No doctors!” he whispered into the mossy bark. “One scan, and they’ll know how close I am. They’ll be struck if they don’t report it, and I’ll be put in the system—” Lestrade licked his lips and forced himself to turn his head and meet the pair of hazel eyes studying him as only two people in the world did, as only two people in the world knew how. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was caked dry. Then he asked in a half-pant,

“I’m a hypocrite and bastard, but is your offer still good, Mister Holmes?”

“I can have you at the Centre in less than an hour. You’re in no condition to give informed consent—”

Lestrade fixed him with a hard stare and roared, “I was at the Centre and look where it got me! _Is your offer still good or is it not?!_ ”

The answer came with a firm nod. “Yes, of course.”

“Then I accept. Let’s go.”

Lestrade took two tentative steps forward, his outstretched arms flailing as if groping in darkness.

“It’s not very far. You’re dehydrated. That ankle—”

“Damn my ankle! Do you, or your brother, ever listen?! No doctors!” insisted Lestrade.

“Doctors Watson and Stamford.”

Lestrade’s legs buckled. A strong pair of arms went ‘round him, and a quick, clipped, utterly posh tone whispered was in his ear.

“As repellant as the idea of accepting support from me is, Detective Inspector, it will make our journey quicker, and time is of the essence, is it not?”

Lestrade nodded wearily. “Stamford. That’s who I need. With all due respect, John’s medical specialty seems to be handling your lunatic of a brother.”

“Indeed.”

“Stamford. Then I’ll go wherever, except the Centre.”

“How long do you have?”

“What time is it?”

“Going on six.”

Lestrade sighed. “Maybe two hours. Or one. Oh, he drugged me. I don’t know what that will do—”

“Understood. Let’s focus on making it to that clearing.”

Lestrade nodded. He fell silent, trying to put into place all the events that had led to him agreeing—and not just agreeing, but wanting—to spend his heat with Mycroft Holmes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a brief reference to suicidal thinking. 
> 
> _Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes._
> 
> "[19th Nervous Breakdown](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU1kTuVSUOw)". (1966)

Like many things in Lestrade’s life, his decision to become a police officer, for example, or his decision to marry, not to mention his decision not to fight the divorce, the whole business had commenced with a pint.

* * *

Lestrade slammed his pint on the bar. Golden liquid and white froth sloshed and slid down the side of the glass.

“Are we in primary school? Do I _like_ Mycroft Holmes? No, I do not. Mark ‘no’ on your little note, or you can write ‘hell, no’ if there is a comments section, and pass it back. There’s a lad.”

He took a long swig and eyed John, who raised his hands defensively.

“Hey, it is just a question, Greg.”

“If you weren’t paying, I’d be gone,” growled Lestrade. “But the boon of a free pint narrowly beats the dirge of having to think about Mycroft Holmes. Narrowly.”

John motioned to the barman to keep ‘em coming, then he asked evenly, “Do you and Mycroft have a history?”

Lestrade blinked, then scowled. What _in the fuck_ was this about?

“No,” he said, extending the syllable long and raising an eyebrow. “My only dealings with Mycroft Holmes have been related to Sherlock, but really,” his voice began to rise in agitation again, “if you’re going to keep up this ‘line of questioning’ as we, the world’s commonplace non-consulting detectives like to call it, then we’re going to have to switch to whiskey and I’m going to make plans to vomit on you.” He took another swig.

“All right, all right. One last question. It’s a bit personal, but can you smell him, Mycroft, that is?”

The glass came crashing down again. “You are mad! Of course, I can smell him. He’s an Alpha bastard. You can smell him, too. He tried to snuff you that day in the warehouse, or don’t you remember? He flooded you with his obnoxious Alpha scent in a failed attempt to beat you into pheromonal submission? Oh, God, I hate them.”

“Yeah, I remember,” said John with a grimace. “A first impression like that is difficult to forget.”

John paused, and his expression puzzled Lestrade. He looked, for a moment, almost like Sherlock when he was trying to figure something out.

“But can you detect a change in Mycroft’s scent when you’re near him, when you approach him?” John continued.

Lestrade snorted. “You’re an absolute nutter, John Watson. Mycroft Holmes smells like an Alpha bastard all the bloody time. Near. Far. In a house. With a mouse. Doesn’t matter. He struts around in a suit that costs more than my divorce, twirling his pretentious umbrella and considering himself quite above the laws that I’ve sworn to uphold. He _stinks_.”    

John sighed, then muttered, “Sherlock said you wouldn’t—"

“Did you invite me out for a pint to talk about Mycroft Holmes?!”

“I invited you out for a pint because of that look on your face at the crime scene today,” argued John. His own face began to turn pink, and his eyes shone dark like iron.

Lestrade didn’t care.

“Oh!” sneered he. He rolled his eyes and turned his gaze to the wall behind the bar. “Did you _deduce_ me, Doctor? Is it catching? Christ, we are switching to whiskey.” He finished his pint and made a motion to the barman.

John leaned close, grabbed Lestrade by the shoulder, and hissed in his ear, “Not too long ago, I saw that look in the mirror. It’s the look of an unbonded Omega whose heat is approaching. A look of an Omega who’s dreading his prospects and thinking of eating his gun. Tell me I’m wrong. It’s not intelligence, Detective Inspector. It’s bloody _empathy_.” He released Lestrade with a small shove.

Their eyes locked until the whiskeys arrived.

They drank, motions mirroring each other until—

_BEEP!_

John looked at his mobile and his face changed at once. He smiled a goofy smile.

“Not Sherlock,” said Lestrade, glancing at him.

John shook his head. “Stamford.”

“He’s in Nice.”

“Yeah, he’s keynote speaker at conference. And he just won a karaoke contest.”

“Elton John?”

“Yup. He wore the costume.”

Lestrade sipped his drink and smiled. “You would never tell it to look at him—”

“Certainly not right now,” said John. He flashed the image of feather-boa-draped, trophy-hoisting Stamford in Lestrade’s direction.

“—but he’s the best Omega doctor in the whole damn world.”

“Best Alpha one, too,” said John. He texted a reply, then dropped his phone in his pocket. “You’ve seen him recently?”

“Yeah, before he left, to get his advice. I go the Centre for my heats. My regular stud just joined the police force, so I’m in the market for a new one.”

“It’s none of my business—”

“You’re right, it isn’t—”

“—but why don’t you get the shot?”

Lestrade stared at him. Then he shrugged and pulled out his phone and laid it on the bar between them. He tapped the screen, and a calendar popped up.

John’s brow furrowed as he studied the screen. It was an appointment with an alarm and a back-up alarm. He read the text.

“That’s so I don’t forget,” explained Lestrade. “No matter where I’m sleeping. Or not sleeping.”

“You take all that?”

“Yeah. For my heart. For my blood pressure. For my cholesterol. For my gut. For my anxiety. For my depression. Then there’s the patches so I don’t smoke. You add the shot to all that and expert opinion is that I will drop dead, sooner rather than later.”

“Christ, Greg.”

“Yeah, I know. Forget vinegar and brown paper, I’m held together with pharmaceuticals and despair.”

John laughed, then he mumbled, “Sorry.”

Lestrade grinned and took another sip. “It’s all right.”

“So, about your heat. You know, there’s Sherlock.”

Lestrade turned his head and stared in disbelief. “You are actually suggesting I spend _my_ heat with _your_ Alpha?”

“We aren’t bonded.”

“You have a bond. A Stamford Bond. It’s the only one of its kind in the world. Or so I hear. You invented it!” Lestrade finished his whiskey and motioned to the barman, then he said under his breath, “I’m a bastard, but not that much of a bastard, John.”

“I’m not pimping Sherlock out, I’m just trying to help. I remember what it feels like, and I hate for anyone else, especially you, to feel like that. And there’s this thing about My—"

Another whiskey appeared.

John frowned. “Should you be—?” He pointed from the drink to the list of medications still visible on the dimming screen of Lestrade’s mobile.

“No, but I’m on my nineteenth nervous breakdown. Here it comes.” He smiled and drank a few long sips of the whiskey. “Even if you weren’t in Sherlock’s life, and I’m very glad you are, by the way, Sherlock wouldn’t agree to share a heat with me, and I wouldn’t agree to share a heat with him. I am certain that you already know this, but I did share one heat with Sherlock. That’s how we met, at the Centre. He was a great Alpha stud, but I knew that he would be more important to me outside of heats, so it was only the one time. He had his own share of troubles shortly after that, and I met Beth…”

Lestrade made a vague motion with his hand.

“And now?” prompted John. “What are you going to do?”

“Well, I must consider the stables of the Farm, mustn’t I?” said Lestrade philosophically. “That is, the Alpha studs of the St. Bartholomew Centre for Secondary Sex Studies. Let’s see. Who do we have? Gregson? No, I’d rather lock myself in a room with one of Sherlock’s patented talking vibrators. Jones? Not if there’s another option, and there is.”

“What about Mycroft?”

Lestrade looked sharply at John and huffed, “Is that a joke?”

John shrugged, waved a dismissive hand, and said quickly, “Yeah, it’s just a joke.”

Lestrade eyed him. “Funny,” he said dryly, then he shook his head. “No, there is a new stud at the Farm. I read his profile. On paper, he looks quite good. Like you, he’s ex-military. They’re usually very professional, and that’s important to me. But I need to see him for myself, get a sense of if we’d be compatible, so I’m going to have a preliminary interview on Friday. If everything goes well, I will check in to the Centre on Monday evening. If not, then I guess it’s Jones, which isn’t a bad choice, really. That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway.”

“Well, I guess that settles it, then,” said John, draining his glass and sliding his card across the bar.

“Yeah, thanks for the drinks,” said Lestrade. He slipped his phone in his pocket and eased off the stool slowly, checking to see just how drunk he was. “You know, I asked Stamford. He shouldn’t have told me, of course, but he’s been my doctor since he’s been a doctor.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, the new stud’s name is Moran, Sebastian Moran.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Well he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke_   
>  _The same cigarettes as me_
> 
> "[(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG8L3CnjmBo)" 1965.

Lestrade wasn’t crazy. And he wasn’t a cowboy.

But damn if his life didn’t tempt regularly, incessantly, on both counts.

He tried. And he tried. And he tried.

But he couldn’t keep hold of the reins. He felt the snap, somewhere deep inside him.

He quickly tore up the business card with the handwritten number that he was never, ever going to call and tossed the bits in the bin. Then he grabbed his gun, shoved it down the back of his trousers like some bloody cop on the telly, and stormed out of his office.

* * *

John’s hands were up. Of course, they were.

Lestrade had just told him to stick them up, right after he’d brandished his gun.

“You’ve got to believe me, Greg. I did not tell Mycroft Holmes that you were about to go into heat!”

“Only you and Stamford knew! Less than an hour ago, that bloody Alpha waltzed into my fucking office and put himself at my fucking service!” The last word was half roar, half sneer.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said a soft, gentle voice behind Lestrade. “I thought maybe the Detective Inspector would like some biscuits. They’re the peanut butter ones you like so much the last time that you were here.”

The smile was as warm as ever, but the eyes fixed nervously on the gun.

Christ, as if Lestrade’s day could not get worse! It was like his mum catching him wanking! In truth, he’d much prefer if his mum, God rest her soul, caught him wanking.

Lestrade lowered the gun and hid it behind his back like a pornographic magazine.

“Thank you, Mrs. Hudson,” he said as calmly as he could manage. He forced a smile. “That’s very thoughtful of you.”

“Napkin?”

“Yes, thank you,” he said and scooped up three biscuits from the plate with his free hand. He dropped the warm, wrapped bundle in his jacket pocket. “They do smell good.”

“Boys?” she offered.

‘No, thank you, Mrs. Hudson’ was the unison reply.

“Detective Inspector.” Boring through him, her eyes seemed to still be on the gun. She motioned to the wall.

“I will not damage the walls, ma’am,” he promised.

She nodded and turned towards the stairs, then stopped and pointed back towards the armchairs. “By the way, that rug is an antique.”

“No, it’s not,” quipped Sherlock, without looking up from his laptop.

“I’ll try not to stain it,” Lestrade said, forcing another smile.

When she’d left, Lestrade turned the gun back on John, whose gaze was now resting thoughtfully on the wall to the left of Lestrade.

He raised his hands slowly and shook his head. “Stamford wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t violate a patient confidence. Mycroft could have hacked the Centre’s files and done some simple math. Or maybe he found out about your appointment with Stamford and assumed. Or…”

John’s expression hardened as as he turned towards Sherlock, who was still seated at the desk, calmly tapping a screen with a stylus.

Oh, Alpha bastards were ever Alpha bastards! Lestrade knew it. Sometimes it was the _only_ thing he knew. He felt that thing deep inside him snap again. He turned his gun on Sherlock, and his hand shook as he yelled.

“ _You_ betrayed me! _You_ told him all about me, you sick fuck! Get a good laugh out of it?”

Sherlock looked up. He stood slowly, then spoke matter-of-factly. “Two betrayals, if you want to be precise and I do. I told Mycroft exactly two items of a personal and confidential nature related to your Omega status: one of which was that your heat was nearing. The rest of our conversation concerned my experience at the Centre in general terms and was in no way related to you directly. I expect Mycroft talked to Stamford, he may have even gone to Nice himself, and I expect that Stamford, unlike me, did not betrayed your confidence, but answered Mycroft’s questions exclusively in terms of collective generalities.”

“Sherlock!” John howled, his hands now on his head. “Why, why?! Not! Good!”

Ignoring John’s fuming, Sherlock kept his eyes on Lestrade. “Why won’t you consider Mycroft? He’d be better than Jones. He’d better than me, in some respects. I had to learn to be a good stud. I had to try and think about it, especially in the beginning. Mycroft actually _is_ that considerate. He _is_ that chivalrous. It’s his infuriating nature.”

Lestrade’s mouth fell open. As did John’s.

“I can’t believe it,” said John. “You’re defending your brother. And you’re suggesting that he’d been a good match for Lestrade. I’ve been talking about that scent thing for months, and you haven’t said a word. Not one word, Sherlock!”

“I spoke with Mycroft last night,” said Sherlock, by way of explanation. “And you aren’t going to shoot John or me, so would you, please, put that thing down?”

Lestrade lowered the gun, then he turned to John. “What ‘scent thing’?” he demanded.

“I tried to tell you at the pub. For some reason, ask Stamford why, I can smell Mycroft more acutely than most Alphas, than any Alpha except Sherlock. But when you are near, he smells very, very different. His pheromonal pattern, it changes. He smells submissive. Not like an Alpha at all. And it’s only around you. I don’t know if he does it on purpose. I thought it might be automatic, involuntary.”

Lestrade frowned and shook his head slowly. Then finally he said, “It doesn’t mean anything, John. He’s an Alpha bastard. He smells like an Alpha bastard, like every Alpha bastard I’ve ever met.”

John shrugged. “I thought it did,” he said simply. “I thought it meant something, like me smelling Sherlock’s lies, like him smelling my fear, that maybe you and he had a Stamford Bond, too, and just didn’t know it. I’m sorry. It seemed like _something_.”

Lestrade tried to be angry at John, but he looked so defeated and, yes, sorry. And Lestrade was so bloody tired of all of it.

Tired of his _fucking_ life.

He turned.

“You don’t do something for nothing, Sherlock. What did your brother give you in return for the information you provided? Did he finally unchain the family coffers?”

“He did that a month ago.”

“Wait, what?!” cried John. “Then what was that Slip-n-Slide business?! You lied, Sherlock!”

“Lie of omission, John. You assumed I was still cut off. I did nothing to dissuade you from that assumption because I wanted to have a tremendous amount of well-lubricated sex with you.”

“I am going to murder you, Sherlock!” said John.

“The line forms to the left, Doctor,” said Lestrade.

Sherlock turned.

Oh, that face!

It was a face from a long time ago. Lestrade remembered the first time he’d seen it, when a new Alpha stud had put the pieces of a case together right before his bloody eyes from bits he’d only read in the papers.

“Mycroft has the biology, Lestrade. He has the character. He has the means to make the experience very comfortable. He’s much more than willing. One heat and you and I became friends. And that will be the worst thing that will happen if you spend your heat with him.”

That voice, too, that soft, low, jaguar-in-a-cello voice, was from a long time ago. Like an old song on the radio.

_He’s telling me more and more. About some useless information. Supposed to fire my imagination._

A long time ago was a long time ago, and Lestrade was not the man, nor the Omega, that he used to be.

He didn’t look back, and he didn’t listen to the radio.

“Okay, let’s entertain this ridiculous notion,” he said bitterly. “First, I want a professional who knows what he’s doing. How many heats has your brother been through?”

“Mycroft learned Serbian in a couple of hours!” cried Sherlock. “You think he can’t manage the intricacies of whoring?!”

“And second, and most of all, it’s _my bloody choice_ ,” screamed Lestrade.

He waved the gun at Sherlock, then John, then back at Sherlock. “When this nightmare is over, if I have need of your professional services, Sherlock, I will contact you. Otherwise, I want you, and you, and your brother, to stay the hell away from me.”

He clomped down the stairs, his hands sunk in his pockets, thinking that at least he’d got lunch out of the fucking mess. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for moderate violence (punches, some blood, being bound and held captive). This is the scene of Lestrade's hostage and his escape into the woods.  
> 
>  _It's not easy facing up when your whole world is black_  
> 
> "[Paint It, Black](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wCUlPNlQuA). (1966)

The Alpha bastard yawned. He hadn’t slept in two days.

Lestrade had. On and off.

It was a point in Lestrade’s favour, a small one, but nevertheless. The old wooden chair to which Lestrade was bound was another. For most of his captivity, he’d been kept on the floor of the shed, but a few hours ago, the Alpha bastard had received a text, with the result that Lestrade had been hoisted and placed in the chair. He’d shifted and discovered the chair was rickety. With force, it might be broken. That might mean freedom _and_ a weapon.

Yes, the chair and Lestrade’s captive’s fatigue were points in his favour, but the points against him were legion. He was in an extremely isolated location judging by the sounds, or lack of sounds, beyond the shed. He was weak. He’d not eaten for two days, but had been given some water, which he’d spit in the bastard’s face the first time. For that, he’d received a pair of blows to his face. On the second offering, many hours later, Lestrade had drank the water meekly. He’d been gagged on and off; yelling only brought fists.  

The interview at the Centre had been going well, or so Lestrade thought, but something had set the Alpha bastard off. They were in an unused suite. A housekeeper had knocked. That was the last clear memory Lestrade had.

First, there was a blow that Lestrade had not seen coming, and then another, and then a stabbing pain in his shoulder, and then nothing. How he’d been removed from the Centre, from Barts itself, without notice was still a mystery.

He had woken to pain and putrid suffocation and realised that he was bound, gagged and surrounded by dirty linen. He’d been transferred from a lorry to the boot of a smaller, less conspicuous vehicle outside of London.

All very efficient, but what was it about?

The Alpha didn’t say much, and now he was pacing, singing to himself, no doubt to keep awake.

“Time is on my side, oh, yes, it is!” he crooned, bouncing from foot to foot like a boxer.

He was a hired gun, no doubt about it. He was tall, muscled and scarred. He wore a tight, sleeveless vest. A tattoo of tiger covered the upper portion of his right arm and shoulder. He checked his mobile often.

“Time isn’t on your side, is it, Detective Inspector?”

No, it wasn’t. In less than a day, Lestrade would be in heat.

Would he escape? Would anyone find him? Would he have to suffer here, in this chair, in this space that already reeked of his bodily fluids?

Or would he be dead?

The Alpha yawned again and rubbed his face with his hand.

"This business," he said wearily. "It's intimate, but not personal.  Switch and bait." He punctuated the last with a laugh; then at a beep, he sprang for his mobile.

“Time for the chickens to fly the coop, Detective Inspector,” he said, nodding at the screen. He retrieved a hypodermic syringe from his kit.

Now. Now. Now.

Everything in Lestrade was screaming ‘Now!’

In the very moment the Alpha bastard leaned down, in the very moment Lestrade felt the stab in his arm, he mustered all his strength and flung his body in the opposite direction.

Lestrade crashed to the floor. The chair splintered.

There was an angry cry.

“Oh, no, you don’t!”

Lestrade quickly wrenched his right arm free. Then he took a splintered piece of wood and swung it like a bat, slamming it into the Alpha’s face. He hit him again and again. There were spurts of blood and pain-filled screams. Lestrade realised that a pair of nails protruding from the board had caught the Alpha bastard in the eye socket. He kept beating him until the other sank to the ground with a muffled groan.

Lestrade frantically freed himself from his remaining bonds. He stood and then stumbled outside on legs that didn’t seem to want to work.

Nothing.

Where was the bloody car, the one that had brought him?

Lestrade heard growls and looked back over his shoulder.

Damn!

The Alpha bastard was wiping the blood from his mangled face and getting to his feet!

Lestrade had no choice. He had to run.

But where?

If the bastard didn’t have a car, that meant someone was coming for him. The road, such that it was, might be dangerous.

The groans behind Lestrade grew louder and angrier, and he felt the first tendrils of the drug-fog begin to intrude upon his thoughts.  He needed to put as much distance between himself and the Alpha bastard as he could before the drug incapacitated him completely.

He turned his head. The woods it was, then.

Run and hide.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Go ahead, go ahead and light up the town_
> 
>  
> 
> "[Time is On My Side](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIE2GAqnFGw)" (1964)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for all of you Stamford fans (of which I am one!). And this is where the heat begins and we get our bump up in rating.

Lestrade woke to words being addressed to him.

And want, a want that was as familiar as the Thames or the tide

And just a powerful.

“We’ve arrived, Detective Inspector.”

Despite the distraction of his own body’s thrumming and the evolution of Mycroft’s scent from ‘Alpha Bastard No. 5’ to ‘Yes. In me. Now,’ Lestrade had dozed in the car.

The car door was opened, and he stepped out into the cool night air. In the darkness, he could make out a cottage, but no more.

“Despite the rural setting, security is excellent. I will brief you on the measures when convenient.”

Lestrade nodded. Security briefing had to wait. It was becoming more and more difficult to focus on anything, save getting a cock inside him.

Lights came on, one by one, as they entered. There was furniture, walls, other things…

He needed a cock. Now.

“Bathroom's here. I will await you in the bedroom, which is there.”

Lestrade closed the bathroom door. He ran cold water in the basin and splashed it on his face. As he stripped off his clothes, he thought about his conversation with Stamford.

* * *

“Did I make the right choice, Mike?”

“Yes.”

Relief washed over Lestrade. “On the job, it is easy, but with this, it can be so bloody confusing…”

“You know that I would prefer for you to spend your heat at the Centre, Greg, but given what you’ve just been through, I understand and fully support your decision.”

“John mentioned ‘a scent thing.’ Is there anything to it? He says Mycroft smells differently around me, and he thought we might have a Stamford Bond without knowing it. But I don’t notice any difference between Mycroft and any other Alpha.”

Stamford sighed. “Without knowing Mycroft better and running a battery of very invasive tests, I can’t say. I do know that John Watson is the most sensitive Omega I’ve ever studied, and I think that’s why he can bond with Sherlock with his gland still intact. Sherlock’s role in the bond is a bit fuzzier and what part genetics play and what he and his brother might share…” Stamford shrugged. “I just don’t know.”

“Then why are you worried about me?”

Stamford looked over at Mycroft, who was pacing in the distance, his mobile pressed to his ear.

“It almost goes without saying that Mycroft Holmes is intelligent. I am certain that he has studied every available resource on the subject of Alpha/Omega heats. And his regard for you is substantial as well as genuine. You’ll be comfortable and safe.”

“But?”

Stamford shook his head slowly. “He’s a virgin when it comes to heats. I don’t like that at all. Not with any Omega, but especially not with you. He doesn’t really know what is going to happen. He may think he does. But neither he, nor you, nor I, for that matter, can predict precisely how he will react the first time.”

Their eyes met.

“You’re worried about the end of the third round.”

“I’m worried about my friend and my patient. Greg, if you have any sense at all that he’s not going to behave himself, you know the signs better than anyone...”

“I’ll call, I promise.”

“I don’t care how big Mycroft Holmes’s prick is, I will take him down and finish your heat myself,” said Stamford firmly as he shut his case. “Using one of Sherlock’s new talking robotic vibrators, of course.”

Greg grinned. “Boy, could we have used one of those, once upon a time!”

Stamford laughed. “Kids these days have all the toys.”

“Everyone underestimates you, Stamford.”

“You, too, Greg. Now, last treatment.”

“What treatment?!”

“This.”

He gave Lestrade a big hug.

* * *

When Lestrade pushed open the bedroom door, he wasn’t certain what he’d find.

But he didn’t expect this.

Mycroft Holmes.

Dressed in loose, long-sleeved dark blue pyjamas and tied, arms and legs outstretched, to the bed.

“You may check the bonds. There’s a gag as well as a blindfold, if you prefer. You’ll excuse the modesty,” he said, looking down at his bedclothes. “But only one part of me is essential to the process, is it not?”

Lestrade was too far gone to voice a reply. Or care about the odd spectacle.

He needed a cock in him. Now.

He peeled off his soaked pants and climbed onto the bed. He eased Mycroft’s pyjama bottoms down to the tops of his thighs. So heady was Lestrade’s lust and so great his haste that he didn’t spare much thought for the cock itself. A cursory glance told him that it was long, big, and jutting proudly out of a patch of wiry ginger curls.

Lestrade gripped the lower hem of a pyjama top as he straddled Mycroft’s waist. He rose up, the better to position the cockhead at the entrance to his cunt. He shifted the cock a bit to find the right spot and had a vague, but fleeting notion that the shaft might be thicker than the norm, even for an Alpha.

But when he finally slid down, impaling himself slowly, then not so slowly, until he was fully sheathed, he was convinced of one thing.

“It’s _fucking_ perfect,” he sighed.

He threw his head back and closed his eyes and breathed deeply, not moving, not rutting yet, simply savouring the sensation of being filled, completely, wholly filled, by something deliciously hot and hard and throbbing. The girth especially made for an incredible stretch, a bit of a burn even, which to Lestrade was...

“Fucking perfect,” he repeated.

Lestrade decided right then that he wasn’t going to censor himself. He wasn’t going to even try. No biting his lip, biting his tongue. Whatever Mycroft Holmes was outside this space, for here and now, he was Lestrade’s Alpha stud, and this was Lestrade’s heat. Stamford’s concerns were valid, Lestrade shared them, to be certain, but especially for the first two rounds, he’d enjoy himself and celebrate all that he’d survived in the past seventy-two hours and his whole life, really. He’d had to fight and fight and fight, and was still fighting, to be taken seriously, to be treated with respect.

But this wasn’t a fight. This was fucking.

And for the first round, Lestrade would simply enjoy fucking himself on this very nice, very thick Alpha cock. And if this Alpha stud behaved himself, which Lestrade suspected he would this early in the heat, then for the next round, he’d let the beast off the leash.

Lestrade let a wide, wicked, satisfied smile spread across his face.

And began to roll his hips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter may take a day or two because I am going to switched to Mycroft POV, which is always a bit trickier. But it will cover the first round of the heat. So very porny!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Don't hang me up and don't let me down_
> 
> "[Let's Spend the Night Together](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l61MFiIeuVM)." (1967)

Fucking perfect, indeed.

That smile was fucking perfect.

That wide, wicked smile that Mycroft had never before witnessed on that face.

That face was handsome and, in many ways, fucking perfect, but until now, Mycroft had only seen it weary, worn, and, even in professional triumph, haggard.

Mycroft shifted slightly to ease the ache in his arms. He didn’t mind the restraints. He preferred them, in fact. They meant that he could observe without worrying about where his hands should or should not be doing. The restraints effectively minimized the margin for error or misstep.

It went without saying that the first sheathing had been pleasurable. Mycroft’s practical sexual experience was limited and so far in the past that it might as well be labeled ‘ancient history’ and put on the shelf aside Thucydides, but he was quite certain that this was the tightest, sweetest, most fucking perfect orifice his cock had ever known.

The rest of the scene before Mycroft was gorgeous, too. There was a hirsute chest begging to be caressed and nipples in urgent need of long, languid licking. It was a handsome body, but not, perhaps, fucking perfect, because it was obvious, even to the unobservant, and Mycroft was anything but unobservant, that the body’s owner had not taken good care of it for quite some time. Like a vintage automobile abandoned to rust.

Nevertheless, Mycroft was fucking or, to be precise, being used to fuck, the man of his dreams, so he had no complaint whatsoever.

He watched hips roll, and when it seemed that a reasonable amount of time had passed, he lifted his pelvis in a manner, he hoped, complimented the rolling. His efforts were reward with a licking of chapped, but fucking perfect lips and a low, rough, and, yes, very sexy, ‘oh, yeah.’

The air was thick with the scent of Omega pleasure. Mycroft inhaled deeply and anticipated no problems in maintaining his erection well into the next century.

He had admired the Detective Inspector—yes, he rarely took the liberty of informal address even within the privacy of his own thoughts—from afar since he had been a Detective Sargent who had invited Sherlock to surreptitiously view crime scenes and had listened, yes, actually listened to, and acted upon Sherlock’s deductions. Mycroft had been certain his admiration was unreciprocated and, what’s more, wholly unwanted and, thus, had said nothing and done nothing about it. Sherlock knew, of course, because Sherlock was Sherlock, but he, too, had said nothing until a few days ago.

 _“Timing is everything, Brother Mine. Unless you wish to spend the entire decade pining, I would offer yourself to Lestrade as a,” here Sherlock paused and seemed to carefully pluck a phrase from memory, “_ heat partner _forthwith.”_

Mycroft had been startled by Sherlock’s concern; what followed was one of the frankest discussions of their entire lives. Per Sherlock’s advice, Mycroft had consulted Doctor Stamford. Then he’d made his offer, and it had been met with the derision and rejection that he’d expected.

And that was that.

Until.

 _He’d alit from the helicopter but stilled at the hard grip on his shoulder and Doctor Watson’s growl in his ear. “You’re as much a sleuthhound as Sherlock is, and you know Greg’s scent better than anyone. Track him like prey and you_ will _find him.”_

And he had.

And now, he was thrusting up into a tight, sweet, fucking perfect cunt and filling it with streams of hot come.

“Oh, yeah, that’s right! Fuck, yeah!”

Mycroft swelled with pride and lust. He felt a clutching ‘round his cock and watched a handsome chest that might just brown like a nut given the right holiday shudder with pleasure.

The hip rolling didn’t stop, but a hand released its grip on Mycroft’s pyjama top and wrapped around a cock. There were two in this tableau, of course.

Mycroft coughed softly and hoped his voice did not betray him. “There is lubricant in the top drawer of the bedside table, Detective Inspector.”

“Thanks.”

Brown eyes fluttered open, so Mycroft closed his.

A scrape of a drawer. A pop of cap. A grunt.

“Not much of one, but it’s all I got.”

‘Not much of one’ was hyperbole. Yes, the cock was smaller than an Alpha’s, perhaps, even smaller than the average beta’s, but Mycroft’s own monstrosity stirred at the thought of that ‘not much’ fitting perfectly in his mouth. And in his hand. And in his arse. The hair ‘round the ‘not much’ cock was dark and thick, and Mycroft wondered what it would taste like.

“Fuck?!”

There was surprise in the exclamation. He wasn’t expecting Mycroft to come again so soon. Was it unwanted, too?

Mycroft dared a peek.

Brown eyes were closed, but there was that wide, fucking perfect smile!

Mycroft kept coming, spurting more and more hot seed up, up, up into that fucking perfect cunt, but as he came, part of him was watching the movements of the fisted hand, riding up and down the shaft. He noted the pace, the loosening and tightening of the grip, the pauses, the caressing.

It was the base, and not the head, that was most sensitive, hypersensitive, perhaps, because two of the caresses resulted in pronounced winces and an immediate slowing of the whole process as well as a bitter note in the otherwise delectably rich aroma that filled the room.

Interesting. And noted.

There was no more rolling of hips, just a tensing and a jerking.

Mycroft closed his eyes.

“So good.” There was a long sigh. “You got any more for me, Mister Holmes?”

Mycroft opened his eyes.

That smile, that fucking perfect smile. Directed at him! Mycroft felt an odd twitching of his own lips but only said,

“Perhaps.”

Then there was a laugh.

A laugh! And a mischievous glint lighting up handsome, yes, very handsome, brown eyes.

Now, Mycroft was smiling.  How could he not?

He thrust up once, as sharply as the bonds at his ankles permitted.

“Ooof! That’s good. But let me ride you, and it’ll be better.”

Hands were on the bed on either side of Mycroft. Brown eyes, caress-able chest, lick-able nipples, drew nearer. Then there was bouncing, hard enough to make the bed squeak and shake.

Mycroft swallowed and looked down. His eyes fell on a knee, then a calf. “Your ankle,” he said with concern.

“Pheromones. Don’t even feel it. All I’m feeling is your cock, and all I’m wanting is a bit more of your sweetness, if you can spare it.”

Mycroft had been studying the three-day beard covering the jaw, but now he sought those handsome brown eyes, which softened like melting chocolate.

“Please, Mister Holmes.”

Mycroft came hard. He pinched his eyes shut.

There was a cry, several of them, actually, then hard breathing that eventually slowed.

“You are full of it, aren’t you, sir?”

“You are, too, now, guv,” said Mycroft.

Another laugh! This one longer, and almost a wheeze.

Then Mycroft started.

The bonds at his wrists were being loosened. Fingers rubbed his skin. Hands went ‘round his back. That chest, those shoulders touched his as he was hoisted to a sitting position. And it was all done with his cock still hard and buried deep.

When he was able, Mycroft moved his arms, mirroring the positioning, the weight, the everything, of the arms that were wrapped around his own torso.

And when he found them anew, brown eyes were hazy with lust.

“I like being full of it, as you can see. Quite the slut for it.”

Mycroft made his voice as gentle as possible. “Would you like some more?”

“Oh, God, yes!”

Mycroft obliged. It was a small, almost timid orgasm, but now he could feel it leave his body as the dribbles of semen did and pass into and through the body of his lover.

Like a message on a wire.

From him.

To his lover.

His lover!

That the man of his dreams might be his lover was too much to contemplate. Mycroft bowed his head until it rested lightly, every so lightly, on a shoulder.

“You know what I like, Mister Holmes?”

Mycroft lifted his gaze.

Their eyes met.

Then he watched with horror as the face changed, the expression became hard and cold and foreign.

Mycroft shivered. What was wrong?

“You know what I like, Mister Holmes. You read my file at the Centre. You talked to my doctor. You talked to your brother. You’re a bloody genius. I don’t need to tell you.”

Mycroft was cold, physically cold, so cold that it took monumental effort not to allow his teeth to chatter as he replied.

“My brother revealed two facts: one, that your heat was imminent and that you were in search of a new partner and two, that restraints were essential. Otherwise, he spoke in general terms. Doctor Stamford only spoke in general terms. I have never, at any time, reviewed your medical file.”

The hard stare didn’t waiver or warm.

Mycroft exhaled. “But since you became an associate of Sherlock’s, I have reviewed your employment records on more than one occasion…”

An eyebrow lifted. A nod.

“…as well as your divorce proceedings.”

There. It was out. All of it.

Brown eyes widened.

“Why?”

“To ensure that you were receiving adequate legal representation.”

Silence, then a question that surprised Mycroft.

“Was I?”

“Yes.”

“And if I hadn’t been?”

“You would have.”

Mycroft frowned. His erection was waning, and in a few moments, it would be painful and then impossible for him to maintain his current position.

“Perhaps you could finish your original statement,” he said.

“Which was?”

“About what you liked, sexually.”

A laugh! A small one, but enough to shatter the tension like a hammer blow to glass.

“You mean you really don’t know?”

Teasing. Flirting.

Mycroft didn’t know how to tease, to flirt back, so he said simply, “No.”

“You really wanna know?”

Oh, for goodness’ sake!

“At this moment, Detective Inspector, it is the only question of importance to me,” he snapped.

A hand on Mycroft’s head. A sandpapery kiss to Mycroft’s cheek.

“Next round.”

And then Mycroft was left on the bed by himself.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for references to Sherlock's past drug use. Angst. H/C. 
> 
> _Yeah, I'm leaning on Nelson's Column_   
>  _but all I do is talk to the lions_
> 
> "Schoolboy Blues" (1970)

Part of Mycroft Holmes was changing the bed linen, part of him was listening to the mingled humming of an electric razor and its wielder beyond the bathroom door, and part of him was lost in fantasy.

* * *

_Knock, knock._

_“Come in.”_

_Brown eyes meeting his in the mirror. A very sexy grin._

_“Good morning, love.”_

_Cheeks warming. “You’re up awful early for a day off.”_

_“I had planned a special wake-up for you, but I didn’t want to rub you raw. Now you’ve gone and spoiled the surprise.”_

_Bare chest to bare back. Lips to bare shoulder. “I wouldn’t have minded it, being rubbed raw.”_

_“I would have.”_

_Hands slipping around a waist, beneath elastic and cotton, cupping a cock._

_Head thrown back. “God, My. You can’t get enough of it, can you?”_

_“I’m given to understand that the sentiment is mutual.”_

_“Fuck, yeah.”_

_A hand releasing a cock long enough to take a razor, turn it off, and set it carefully on the edge of the washbasin._

_“I had a special wake-up planned for you, too.”_

_“Change of both our plans?”_

_“Only the venue.”_

_“Fuck! I’m gonna rub you so raw.”_

* * *

 

Knock, knock.

“Yes?”

A smile on a clean-shaven face. A bare chest.

Mycroft realised, much too late, perhaps, that shirts would be, hitherto, optional.

Well, that wouldn’t be a hardship, would it?

“Thank you for doing the bed. S’alright if I check out the kitchen?”

“By all means,” said Mycroft.

A refrigerator door opening. A long whistle.

“Are we having a heat or a bacchanal?”

“Is there much difference?” replied Mycroft. “My studies suggested not.”

A laugh! “Not by the looks of this larder. Jesus Christ!”

The cottage was so small Mycroft could see all of it, kitchen, sitting room, bathroom, from where he stood leaning against the frame of the door to the one bedroom.

“My staff is as efficient and thorough as yours, Detective Inspector.”

“I have a staff. You have an army of magic elves!”

“At the appropriate moment, I shall relay the spirit, if perhaps not the letter, of your compliment.”

“Yeah, if Anthea and Donovan ever get together, you and I’d better start looking at early retirement, eh?”

“Indeed.”

He was bending down, staring like a child at Christmas at the contents of the refrigerator, then he looked up and over at Mycroft. “At the risk of nagging like a fucking Omega—”

Mycroft winced. When had a simple expression of concern for another’s wellbeing become nagging? He had a strong desire to kick quite a few Alphas in the teeth.

“—the second round is usually quite demanding physically. I know it’s all ‘transport’ for you Holmeses, but a snack, a sip of water, and a nap wouldn’t hurt.” His gaze had softened, as had his voice.

“I’ll have what you’re having,” said Mycroft, running a self-conscious hand down the front of his pyjamas, which were now the green ones. “While we eat, I can brief you on security and then I’ll kip on the sofa.”

That won Mycroft a half-smile, which was lovely, and a slight sweetening of the scent in the air, which was also lovely.

“Great! Two bacon, lettuce, tomato, and—what’s in this? oh, hello!—tiramisu sandwiches coming up!”

* * *

Mycroft’s first thought was was fire. Alarmed, he opened his eyes, but saw no smoke. The sitting room, he turned his head, and the kitchen were exactly as they had been when he laid down on the sofa.

But there was a fire somewhere. Mycroft felt the scorching heat on his skin; it burned the lining of his nostrils and his lungs. He looked down. He was still in green pyjamas, but his cock was hard.

He heard a soft cry of pain.

Pain and utter distress.

Like torture.

Mycroft hurled himself clumsily into the bedroom.

In the far corner.

Naked.

Curled in a ball atop a sodden towel.

Like a beaten animal that was still being struck by an invisible hand.

Mycroft placed his own hands on trembling shoulders, and the crouching figure turned and sprang.

What happened next was instinct.

Nothing more.

Mycroft took the bundle of human in his arms and laid it on the bed, yanked his own pyjama bottoms down, parted wet, sticky thighs and filled the cunt, which was it desperately clutching ‘round emptiness. He thrust and thrust and thrust until he came. Then he brought his lips to a clean-shaven, tear-stained cheek and whispered,

“Why didn’t you—?”

“Alphas aren’t to be disturbed.”

Mycroft shifted. He became even more concerned, first by the boiler-room atmosphere, which hadn’t relented despite his orgasm, and by the pitiful condition of the creature beneath him.

The brown eyes that met his were bloodshot and watery, and the body enveloping his was still jerking, thrashing as if lit by electric current. Mycroft obeyed his Alpha instinct and continued to thrust as he spoke in what he hoped was a tone of reassurance,

“You may, of course, wake me if you need me. At any time.”

“There’s no ‘of course,’ Mister Holmes. You’re an Alpha. You’re in charge here.”

Mycroft didn’t recognise the voice. It was low and slurred and, yes, submissive. He came again, and finally, there was a ribbon-draught of breeze in the near-suffocating heat. “I would beg to differ,” he said softly. “But I suppose we shall make our own rules as we go along. The first of which is that you may wake me, or if you wish, simply use my body for your purpose whilst I sleep.”

Something stirred. Brown eyes looked up at Mycroft, bright, sharp, first with distrust and suspicion, but then finally with acceptance. There was a nod. “The same goes for me, of course.”

“There is no ‘of course,’ Detective Inspector. My knowledge is vast, but wholly theoretical. I make no assumptions.”

There was a look that Mycroft didn’t recognise, then a voice he did.

“All right. You may also fuck me whilst I sleep, Mister Holmes. Does your knowledge include what the textbooks call ‘tethering’?”

“Yes,” Mycroft said quickly. The fingers that laced between his, he noticed, were wet. In fact, the whole hand, to the wrist, was slick with secretions. “Oh,” he said, in belated realisation.

“Yes. But I did warn you. Quite the slut.”

The last was, no doubt, a phrase that had been uttered derisively and often by many Alphas at many Omegas, but Mycroft had no desire to hear it again, at least not in that shameful, self-loathing tone. He raised their joined hands and shifted his fingers until their palms and digits were flat against each other’s. He cocked his head in an appraising manner.

“Mine’s a bit larger,” he observed casually.

Brown eyes widened.

“For future reference,” Mycroft added.

Not smirking, not smirking at all.

There was a chuckle. “Well, well, well, Mister Holmes. It’s noted for the record.”

And just like that, the air was cool, and the atmosphere cordial.

But, sadly, not for long.

They fucked again, double-tethered, as the textbook called it. Then Mycroft released hands that held his and twisted, reaching for the bottle of lubricant.

“I would have you enjoy it as well,” he said, suspecting that there was too much condescension in his voice and getting confirmation of that suspicion at once.

“What a gentleman!”

But then two sets of fingers were twined again while another hand, not Mycroft’s, was stroking a cock. Mycroft took a moment to look down, studying the seam of their joint bodies and the fist that was moving up and down and savouring the way that the back of the hand and the knuckles brushed his skin.

He frowned.

There was something different about the way the hand moved.

Was it the sensitivity of the base of the cock? Perhaps. There was there something different about the way it felt, too. What was it?

But then the cock was spurting on the stroking hand and on Mycroft’s pyjama top. And then Mycroft was pulling out and turning to the pile of flannels on the top of the dresser and pouring water from a pitcher into a washbasin that sat upon an antique stand against the wall.

“I suppose you think me ungrateful, Mister Holmes. I do appreciate all the efforts you’ve made, the sacrifice—”

Maybe it was the word ‘sacrifice’ that made Mycroft snap. Maybe it was something else. But for the first time since they’d reached the cottage, he was angry.

“Sod the gratitude,” he said, tossing a clean, damp flannel towards the bed. “You don’t even like me.”

Mycroft immediately regretted the words. He wanted to reach out and take them back.

“How could I? The first time we met, you kidnapped me and tried to snuff me.”

Which poet had written about the long shadows of our errors? All of them, maybe. The shadows of Mycroft’s errors seemed to stretch fathoms.

“That was a grievous lapse in judgment, for which I apologise, Detective Inspector.”

“It was a lapse you made again not too long ago with John Watson.”

Mycroft rubbed his face and neck with a second damp flannel. “Yes. Another mistake. When it comes to my brother’s welfare, I seem to make quite a few of them.”

How could it be called a ‘heat’ when it was so bitterly cold?

“Yeah, let’s talk about Sherlock. You turned your back on him when was getting clean.”

Oh, no! No, no, no.

Mycroft turned.

“Do you know how many times I tried to help Sherlock? The treatment centres, the doctors! Do you know how many times he came to me asking for help and deceived me? He broke my heart, the heart that no one seems to think I have! In the end, I did not know how to help him, but I would not give him the means to kill himself. If you’d like to talk about gratitude, Detective Inspector, you may consider this payment for services rendered because I will always be grateful that you believed in my brother when I did not. You gave him purpose when I did not. Yes, I’m an Alpha bastard, like every other Alpha bastard, but, please, do not doubt my love for my brother.”

Their eyes met.

“I’m sorry, Mister Holmes.”

“As am I, Detective Inspector.”

For everything.

For absolutely everything.

Flannels were tossed in a plastic-lined bin.

“I don’t believe in fairy tales, Mister Holmes, or magic. I know that we cannot erase the last few hours and start over, but maybe going forward, I can do better. I know I’d like to try, at least. I realise that I don’t really know you at all.”

“Would you like to know me?’ That was the question, wasn’t it? Mycroft held his breath until the answer, which was a twitching half-smile and, more importantly, not one moment of hesitation.

“Yes, I would.”

Mycroft dropped his head and nodded. “I’d like to get to know you better as well, Detective Inspector.”

“You can start by calling me ‘Greg.’”

Mycroft looked up, startled. “Gregory?”

“Yeah, why not?”

Mycroft’s heart leapt. “Then you must call me ‘Mycroft,’” he said quickly.

A smile.

A wide, face-splitting, fucking perfect smile.

Gregory’s smile.

“How about I start by telling you, with manual demonstration, of course, precisely what it is that I like about that cock of yours, Mycroft?”

He grinned, and they both reached for the bottle of lubricant.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for fisting.
> 
>  _She blew my nose and then she blew my mind._  
>  "[Honky Tonk Women.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex-_1zah1bU)" (1969)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lost my muse and got the flu, but now we're back!

Mycroft fought the urge to close his eyes. He wanted to place his whole self in Gregory’s hands, to surrender to the pleasure that those hands were coaxing from his body, to give himself over to whatever Gregory desired to do to him, but he also wanted to observe, to watch Gregory’s hands moving up and down his cock, to imprint this image, and all the sensory artifacts associated with it, on memory like a fossil on stone.

Gregory’s voice was high-pitched, breathy, almost theatrically coquettish. Mycroft wondered if this was the Omega’s voice, but then he quickly swept the thought away. The Omega wasn’t separate from the man, and to indulge in such thinking for an instant was folly as well as a disservice to Gregory.

“It’s a lovely length. I’m a size queen, of course. All Omegas are. It’s quite big enough, but what’s even better,” over and over, Gregory brought both hands up to Mycroft’s prickhead and then down the shaft to the base, squeezing the length of him, “is the girth. That’s what makes this a very, very good cock, especially for me. So thick, it stretches me every, single time and puts indirect pressure on a very specific area…”

Mycroft gripped the sheets, certain he was going to come, but then the hands were gone. It was only when his eyes fluttered open that he realised that he’d closed them.

“My?”

Nicknames already. How intimate, and Gregory was leaning so close that the question was a phantom kiss of warm breath and lips on Mycroft’s cheek.

“Hmm?”

“I was going to…but I’m distracted…and it’s all for fun, anyway, right?”

“Absolutely,” said Mycroft, who, for once in his long life, was not following along at all.

“May I take a liberty?”

Mycroft knew the answer to that, regardless. “Anything.”

“I’d really like to suck your cock.”

“Oh, God, yes.”

Mycroft sat on the edge of the bed, still in a green pyjama top that now seemed, considering that he’d removed the matching trousers when Gregory had begun, ridiculous rather than modest.

Gregory had been seated in a chair before Mycroft, but at Mycroft’s last utterance, he fell to his knees.

Mycroft’s gaze dropped with Gregory. He saw Gregory take half the length of the monstrous cock in his mouth, lips straining ‘round the girth he’d just been lauding; then he wrapped his hand around the lower portion of the shaft.

Mycroft pinched his eyes shut. He blocked out the image and focused the glorious, and it was glorious, yes, sensations being produced by Gregory’s mouth and Gregory’s hand, working in tandem.

Don’t think about it. Just feel. Wetness. Heat. Tight, hot, lovely—

“What’s wrong, Mycroft?”

Mycroft didn’t open his eyes, but there was a sudden chill, the kind an old aunt would’ve described as someone walking over her grave, and. “It’s lovely. Tight. Hot. Warm—”

“But?”

Mycroft shook his head.

There was an exhale, another chill, and then a nuzzling and sweet, soft, gentle licking at the crease where Mycroft’s thigh met his torso.

“I’m not a mind reader, Mycroft, but I can smell something is wrong, and the truth is, though you may not believe it, that I want to please you as much as you want to please me. More, even. I’m wired for it, and the pheromones, well, they scramble the brain more than a bit, don’t they? Please tell me.”    

“The sensations are pleasurable in the extreme…”

Silence.

“…but, I don’t like to see you on your knees, Gregory, before me, before anyone.”

Mycroft’s lap was full. He opened his eyes.

Gregory blinked. “Alphas enjoy that. Most insist on it, at some point.”

The phrase ‘not most Alphas’ hovered n the ether about them, but Mycroft wasn’t about to say it. He wanted to demonstrate the fact to Gregory.

Words were, just, well, words.

“I enjoyed it, too. I just didn’t want to watch it,” explained Mycroft. “The image is a bit distressing.”

A brow above brown eyes furrowed.

“You weren’t made for that, Gregory,” added Mycroft. “It doesn’t seem right, somehow.”

Gregory blinked again, then a tiny smile tugged at his lips. “Fair enough. It’s time to show you something.”

A bit of reaching and twisting and then Mycroft’s fingers were being dipped into palm of slick.

Gregory guided Mycroft’s hand down Gregory’s cock to the base, and then…

“Oh,” breathed Mycroft, and at once, his earlier observations about how Gregory pleasured himself had more context.

There was something different.

“Gentle, gentle,” warned Gregory.

Mycroft traced the two tiny folds with his fingertip, then parted them. And touched.

Gregory gasped.

“Stop?” queried Mycroft, with concern.

Gregory shook his head. “Just be gentle.”

Mycroft resumed teasing the folds, then moved outwards, with greater pressure, in slow circling caresses.

Gregory relaxed, dropped his head, and groaned into Mycroft’s shoulder. “Yeah, I should have known you’d get the idea. It’s a bundle of nerve fibres with no known evolutionary purpose other than my pleasure. And when your tree trunk of a cock passes by,” Mycroft trailed his fingertips backwards to the leaking hole, “it’s fucking perfect.”

Mycroft returned to the nub, exploring it further.

No more gasps, just a litany of ‘oh, fuck’s’ and a near-clawing of Mycroft by the neck and shoulders and a wonderful bucking of hips and a few tiny spurts from a cock Mycroft desperately wanted to suck.

“Freakish, no?” asked Gregory. His voice was thick, but once more his own baritone growl.

Mycroft stopped his caressing abruptly. “No,” he replied simply.

Gregory looked at him, brown eyes round. “No?”

“Anomalous, perhaps, but from my perspective, Gregory, quite fortuitous as well as expedient, efficient.”

Gregory laughed. “Really? Well, that’s a new one. Efficient, huh?” Then there was kissing along Mycroft’s neck and nuzzling that resembled the earlier nuzzling of Mycroft’s crotch.

Lovely. And like a lover. They were lovers, yes, and lovers took liberties, didn’t they?

“I need your cock in me, Mycroft.”

Mycroft echoed Gregory’s earlier words. “I was going to…but I’m distracted…and it’s all for fun, anyway, right?”

A smile was pressed to Mycroft’s neck. “What do you want?”

“I want to suck your clit. And your cock.”

Gregory’s head popped up. “You want to suck _my_ cock?”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t want me to suck yours?”

“I don’t want you on your knees.”

“Ah!” The distinction seemed to finally register. “But what is my poor barren cunt going to do in the meantime? It’s already screaming.”

“We’ll think of something.” Mycroft pulled the pyjama top over his head, which elicited a long wolf whistle and provoked a blush.

* * *

“…fuck, fuck, FUCK! No!”

The last was a pathetic, forlorn cry when Mycroft released Gregory’s hand.

Mycroft lifted his head, then bent it again to kiss Gregory’s clit sweetly, then he shifted made shushing noises into Gregory’s thigh. He purposefully pulsed more of his Alpha scent into the air, the first time in his life, he noted with detachment, that he’d done it for a noble, rather than nefarious, purpose. He heard Gregory inhale noisily, then sigh contentedly.

“It’s a self-lubricating orifice, My,” he slurred when the cap popped.

“Yours, yes. My hand, not so much.” Mycroft poured the lube over his knuckles. It wouldn’t take much more.

Maybe…

He dropped the lubricant and found Gregory’s hand and held it tight. Then he rose up and licked along the length of Gregory’s cock.

“Oh, fuck, you weren’t joking.”

“No,” said Mycroft and took the entirety in his mouth and sucked hard.

Gregory came at once, and while he trembled, Mycroft twisted his hand, the hand that was half inside Gregory, and sank the whole of his fist into Gregory’s cunt.

He listened to Gregory’s panting and moaning his name with rapture, pulling off Gregory’s cock only to swallow the bitterness that filled his mouth and suckle a bit more at Gregory’s clit, which brought another wave of trembling. Gregory’s cunt clenched ‘round Mycroft’s hand; Gregory’s secretions dripped from Mycroft’s wrist and forearm.

Mycroft continued to suckle and vowed that he would not stop.

Not until Gregory begged it of him.

His own cock was raging, of course. Mycroft didn’t care. He was filling his lover, stretching him the way his lover’s body craved, pleasuring the very core of his lover, with merciless tenderness, with ruthless gentleness, suckling a spot that was crafted for nothing but that pleasure, making him weep with it, overwhelming him, grounding him, comforting him and driving him mad—all at once.

“My, my…”

Mycroft stopped and looked up the length of Gregory’s body. Tears were streaming from pinched eyes and his face was contorted in an expression that resembled a Renaissance painter’s impression of agonised ecstasy.

“Enough, My.”

Mycroft nodded and eased his hand slowly out of Gregory’s body. He bent his head and sucked Gregory’s cock once more. A second bitter splash filled his mouth, and he drank it down.

Then fingers that had been laced in Mycroft’s brushed Mycroft’s cheek. Brown eyes were still watery and fogged with lust. “What does that big Alpha cock want?” he slurred.

“To fuck you.”

Gregory nodded. “But how?”

Mycroft blinked and considered the question. His head turned slowly, then stopped. “Against the wall?”

Gregory grinned.

* * *

“…fuck, fuck, FUCK!” screamed Gregory as he looked up at the ceiling, half-laughing.

His legs were wrapped around Mycroft’s waist. Mycroft’s prick was sunk deep inside him. Mycroft was thrusting up, shoving Gregory’s body up, scraping it, no doubt, against the wall.

Mycroft had come twice. He was coming again.

Gregory’s head dropped. He looked at Mycroft. “You had your fist inside me.”

“Cock, now. You’re a bit of size queen. I hear all Omegas are.”

Gregory snickered. “You sucked my clit. You sucked my cock. You drove me mad.”

“It’s the heat.”

It _was_ warm, but not the scorching heat of Gregory’s earlier distress, more like the pleasant heat of a fire on a cold, damp, late winter night. A fucking perfect heat. Especially since no one was wearing any clothing.

Mycroft nuzzled the right side of Gregory’s neck, in imitation of Gregory’s earlier ministrations.

“Um. Is kissing okay, My?”

The question was accompanied by a shock of cool air, as if someone had just opened a window.

Mycroft nodded.

And then his head was in Gregory’s hands, and Gregory’s lips were on his.

And they were kissing.

They were two lovers kissing.

Affectionate. Warm.

From ‘hello’ to ‘I missed you’ to ‘Good morning, gorgeous’ to ‘have a good day, be safe’ to ‘I love—’

Mycroft came.

“So good, so good,” chanted Gregory into Mycroft’s ear. “So good, you know, I think, I’d like to go back to the beginning…”

Mycroft grinned and walked them, still joined, to the bed. “…and do it all over again.”

 

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Just 'cause you feel so good_  
>  _Do you have to drive me out of my head?_  
>  "Get Off Of My Cloud" (1965).

Mycroft Holmes was different.

Such a dangerous thought, but one that ought not to be dangerous. It ought not to be dangerous because Lestrade knew better, at least, in the professional arena. He wasn’t one to jump to conclusions. How many times had a crime scene, a suspect, a witness, hell, even a corpse, not been what they seemed at first?

And, yet, it _was_ dangerous a thought because how many times had Lestrade been here, well, not here precisely, of course, in a little cottage in the middle of nowhere, and not precisely here, either, in terms of sixty-nine-ing a horse-hung George Smiley who preferred to swaddle himself bespoke pyjamas when he wasn’t getting blown, but how many times had Lestrade been in the middle of the second round of a heat and thought, ‘this one’s different’? And how many times had he been proved wrong?

Always.

He’d always been wrong. And he had the scars to show for his errors in judgment.

Until Sherlock.

But Sherlock being different had nothing to do with him being an Alpha and everything to do with him being bloody Sherlock Holmes.

And then there was Beth.

No beta was equipped to handle an Omega’s heat. They’d been such fools in love to even contemplate it. She’d torn herself to pieces over his ‘three-day orgies,’ and he’d finally relented. Well, that had turned out just peachy, hadn’t it? On the second day of the heat, she had called Stamford and a solicitor, in that order. He didn’t blame her, not then, not now.

And, finally, the Farm, where everything was written in black and white and where you signed on the dotted line and, yeah, there were eyes watching all the time, but in Lestrade’s case, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. And Hopkins was good.

But Mycroft Holmes was different.

Whether he was a typical Alpha or not was a debatable subject, but that he was a different person from what, until now, Lestrade had believed him to be, was a complete certainty.

Dark warehouses. Dark suits. Dark chauffeured cars. Dark threats.

Cold. Cutting. Cruel.

That was the Mycroft Holmes that Lestrade knew.

But this Mycroft wasn’t cold at all.

He was sweating, for starters. Lestrade had never seen him sweat, not once, but now his damp skin was beginning to stick Lestrade’s damp skin in rather irregular places, and the ripping sound and sensation that resulted when they shifted positions on the bed made Lestrade want to laugh, cringe, and groan, all at the same time.

No, Mycroft Holmes wasn’t cold. This prick that Lestrade was sucking was as about as hot as the first sip of coffee on a cold day and just as inviting.

And Mycroft Holmes wasn’t cutting. Every touch, every word so far had been gentle. His whole manner had been chivalrous. Nothing cruel. Or calculating.

So far.

Yes, Lestrade had been wrong, but the Omega didn’t care. Not about first impressions or last ones. At the moment, it wanted just cock. And damn if it wasn’t getting it! A thick, plump, long, trunk of a monster prick.

Fucking perfect.

Lestrade bobbed while his hands roamed, squeezing and caressing the lower half of Mycroft’s shaft, fondling his sacs, teasing his rim, gripping his thighs.  

“Gregory.”

Four fingers weren’t a fist. The Omega wanted to be fucked by the whole hand, and, to be sure, would have it again by the end of the heat, but Lestrade needed at least a small portion of his faculties to blow any Alpha properly, and thus, he’d made a noise of protest when Mycroft had made to lube his whole hand.

They had settled on four fingers.

But what was even more lovely than four-fingered-fucking was the kitten-licking of Lestrade’s thighs.

Lestrade loved it. And a stud wouldn’t do that. Not even a good one.

It was like a lover. And like a lover, Lestrade wanted what he wanted, Omega be damned. He wanted his clit sucked. He wanted his cunt sucked, too, for that matter. Suspecting that Mycroft might oblige, Lestrade popped off the monster cock and muttered,

“Come for me, My. Fill my mouth to overflowing and I’ll sit on your face and let you tongue-fuck me ‘til the aliens finally come back and claim what’s theirs.”

“FUCK!”

Lestrade didn’t have time to giggle at the expletive. He had to be quick. And he was quick. He grinned and let everything dribble out and roll messily down his chin and neck and drip back onto Mycroft’s body.

“Come here!”

It was the most typically Alpha thing that Mycroft Holmes had said thus far. But that he was not ordering Lestrade to ‘assume the position’ was different. Quite different.

Mycroft bent his knees, and Lestrade put a palm on each bony prominence and pushed up, sat up...

…right onto Mycroft’s tongue.

“OH, GOD!”

Lestrade leaned forward, pinched his eyes closed, and came and kept on coming.

“Oh, oh, oh,” someone, somewhere, who sounded an awful lot like him, was whimpering, and then blubbering, “My, my, my.”

Lips and that tongue were making love to Lestrade’s clit, drinking from his cunt. A slicked hand snaked around his cock. His teeth were digging into a knee, someone’s knee, not his own, that would beyond even the pheromones, and he was keening, awash in pleasure, his whole body vibrating with it.

This was different. This had to be different. No stud did this.

Mycroft was worshipping him.

Lestrade’s cock jerked and spent, then two hands were on his waist, guiding him.It took longer than it should have for Lestrade to realise what was happening, what the hands wanted.

“Oh, God. You want me to ride that mouth, don’t you?”

There was a grunt and a hum, and at the latter, Lestrade came again.

“My!”

Lestrade bent forward. He closed his eyes and gripped Mycroft’s knees as if his life depended on it. His own knees were aching, despite the pheromone analgesic, but he rode Mycroft’s mouth, rocked and bucked and painted those lips, that tongue, the whole face, with his coming.

And the wave of pleasure accompanied it didn’t just threaten to overwhelm Lestrade.

Until it did, in fact, overwhelm him.

Lestrade fell forward onto the bed and landed on a warm, white cloud of nothingness.

* * *

He woke to words, soft words, questions, his name. Lestrade couldn’t figure the words out. They seemed to be in the wrong order. Or maybe the wrong language.

The Omega mewled and tried to lift a rump in invitation, in supplication, in submission, but though the thoughts were being thought, Lestrade wasn’t entirely certain that his body even was moving.

Then there was a thin curl of ugly smoke, like a cheap cigarette being lit somewhere. It meant the Alpha was displeased.

“What’s wrong?” Lestrade mumbled, making a valiant effort to twist his head and push up off the bed. “Oh,” he murmured after following Mycroft’s gaze until he could follow it no more. He fell back, face into the bed, feeling a bit sorry for himself.

The scars.

The marks made by blades, by teeth, even by flame, once.

“It’s intact,” he said.

‘It’ meaning the gland, of course. That was the miracle of it all. Despite everything, he was still an unbonded Omega, a very old unbonded Omega, of course, but still.

But still!

“Quite a few Alphas have done you a disservice, Gregory.” Mycroft sounded like he wanted to round up those Alphas, take them to a dark warehouse, make dark threats, and do them all a dark disservice. Or twelve.

“Perhaps,” said Lestrade. But that was only half the story. He should tell Mycroft the rest of it. And soon.

“I shan’t,” said Mycroft.

It was a vow, an oath, a sworn pledge.

Lestrade wanted to weep. He wiggled his arse instead.

And he was taken gently and filled gently and fucked just as gently.

And with Mycroft’s come still oozing out of his well-fucked cunt, he turned, and Mycroft drew him into his arms.

“I believe the round is ending,” said Mycroft quietly. Lestrade buried his face in the crook of Mycroft’s neck and nodded. Mycroft continued, “Perhaps a wash is in order. The bathroom isn’t very spacious, I’m afraid. But, um—”

Lestrade put his fingers to Mycroft’s lips. “Give us a minute, yeah?”

Mycroft nodded. “Of course, of course. I’m sorry.” He pressed his lips to Lestrade’s temple.

Lestrade listened to beat of Mycroft’s heart and breathed in his warm, reassuring scent. “You aren’t what I thought you were, Mycroft. I’ve misjudged you for a very long time, and I’m sorry.”

“I kidnapped you. I tried to snuff you. First impressions, etcetera.”

“Well, to quote someone, ‘That was ages ago! Why would I be still upset?’”

“Now what kind of Alpha bastard would say a thing like that? Oh, yes, that Holmesian kind!”

Lestrade snorted. They fell back into silence. Then Lestrade said,

“I’m finding it difficult to know what I’m really feeling and thinking.”

“If you mean distinguishing what is due to the influence of the heat and what is genuine, yes. You are not alone in that, Gregory.”

Lestrade sighed. Mycroft _did_ understand.

“Despite initial actions to the contrary, Gregory, I’ve always held you in high regard—”

“Mycroft, I’ve always held you in utter contempt! And now it feels like I’m falling in love!”

Their eyes met, and then both looked away laughing shyly, nervously.

Mycroft kissed Lestrade’s cheek.

“My head is swimming, Mycroft, but I have to say something about bonding before the next round…”

“Look at me, Gregory.”

Lestrade pulled back and looked up into hazel eyes that were suddenly clouded with concern.

“Bonding should be a decision taken when all parties involved are sober and certain,” said Mycroft.

“Yes!” exclaimed Lestrade with relief. “You understand!”

Mycroft smiled. “I am a bit ridiculous at times and have no training as a heat companion, Gregory, but I am not a fool. Or a predator. I shall not take advantage of you in that way.” His eyes drifted to Lestrade’s left shoulder ridge and he frowned. “Things will be different. You need not have any anxiety.”

It was Lestrade’s turn to frown. “But there’s also…”

Mycroft kissed his lips, and Lestrade tasted himself on them. He felt Mycroft shiver, and he curled his arms tighter ‘round Mycroft’s neck.

“Are you cold, Mycroft?”

“Don’t worry, Gregory. I shall not harm you.”

More kisses.

Friend’s kisses. Then lover’s kisses. Kisses that began as chaste and sweet and tender but ended lusty and hot and demanding.

Lestrade grunted as he shifted in Mycroft’s lap, feeling the dampness between his legs renewing.

“Another round so soon?” whispered Mycroft.

“No, more like a coda to the last one.”

“Or an ovation,” suggested Mycroft, teasingly. “For an outstanding performance.”

Lestrade giggled. “Yes. Bravo!” Then he looked down and watched Mycroft’s cock stirring. “Might I have just one more?” he asked, his voice straining to a plea.

“By all means.”

Lestrade untangled himself and then straddled Mycroft and sank back down on his cock. He threw his head back and gave a sharp noise of satisfaction.

Mycroft rubbed his face in Lestrade’s chest hair and grinned. Then he began to lick at Lestrade’s nipples.

It was bliss.

“Did you read about scenting?” Lestrade asked as his cunt clutched around Mycroft’s cock, drawing slow, thick streams of come into his body.

“Yes. To be frank, I thought it sounded lovely.”

Lestrade smiled. “I suppose it can work both ways.”

Mycroft stopped his ministrations and looked up, eyes bright and hair horribly, adorably disheveled.

“Both ways?” he echoed.

“It’s usually the Omega scenting the Alpha, but the Alpha could scent the Omega, too.”

“I’d like that,” then Mycroft studied their bodies, “a bit later.”

“Yeah, a wash is long overdue, but, um, speaking of both ways,” Lestrade ran his hands down the length of Mycroft’s back, “if at any point you happen to be curious about what an Omega cock might feel like sunk in your tight arse, pissing sweet come into you, I’d be more than happy to offer a demonstration.”

_WHAM!_

Lestrade was on his back, being fucked roughly. An equally rough voice tickled his ear.

“Yes, please, please….”

“You take the bathroom first. Prep yourself, then I’ll join you.”

And then, in quick succession, there was a very loud Alpha growl, a very Alpha-sized load of come in Lestrade’s cunt, a hard, quick kiss on Lestrade’s lips.

And then Mycroft was gone.

Lestrade’s giggling turned to a howl just as the bathroom door slammed.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for angst, threats of violence and self-mutilation and use of restraints and dub-con for heat sex. This is the last hurt of the hurt/comfort.
> 
> _You make a grown man cry_   
>  "Start Me Up." (1981)

_BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!_

“Oh, fuck.”

The weight on Mycroft’s back lifted.

He supposed that all young people had woken up in a rather muddled state on the cool tile of a bathroom at some point in their adolescences, and he was simply several decades in arrears on the matter. That a long-held sexual fantasy had just been realised was more than adequate compensation for the discomfort of body and potential awkwardness of relation between him and his very virile lover. Really, the tiny bathroom was not the ideal location for activity such as theirs, but they’d both been impatient, and having just fitted fresh linen on the bed, Gregory had not wanted to return to the bedroom.

“Do you need help getting up, Mycroft?”

Mycroft did, in fact. When he was upright, he asked about the beeping.

“Yeah, my kit?” There was a squeak-bang, squeak-bang of cabinets. “Oh, here it is. Great. Yeah, that the alarm on my phone. Nothing like a pill reminder to, well, ruin a perfectly good post-fuck-crumple-on-the-loo-floor.”

Mycroft grunted and looked down at his own nude form. “Gregory…”

“Wash? A real one, meaning one that doesn’t end up with my cock in your splendid arse?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah. I’ll make us something to eat, then take my turn.” He swallowed what to Mycroft seemed an alarming number of tablets with a handful of water from the tap. Then he kissed Mycroft on the shoulder and left the bathroom, humming.

* * *

“Science fiction?” asked Gregory, hopefully.

Mycroft shook his head.

“Mysteries? Thrillers?”

“No, I don’t read fiction at all, I’m afraid.”

Gregory’s face fell.

“I like history,” offered Mycroft.

Gregory brightened. “Hey, last year I read a book about Dunkirk. It was very interesting. Let’s see, what was the title of it?”

“Gregory, anything written about the last five hundred years is journalism, not history.”

Gregory frowned.

“I don’t suppose you’ve read any Thucydides,” said Mycroft.

Gregory looked positively in despair. “No sport? Not even cricket or polo or something?”

Mycroft shook his head. They ate the rest of their omelettes in silence.

“Films?” asked Gregory when the rashers and toast had been dispensed with as well.

“Yes!” Mycroft cried. “I have a home cinema,” he said, proudly.

“Great!” Gregory clapped his hands together. “We can have a Bond night!”

It would hardly matter what the film was, would it? Mycroft would be too smitten with the company to pay it any attention.

“I’ll cook,” said Mycroft. “I like to cook.”

“Then why was I doing the fry-up?”

Mycroft grinned. “It soothed your Omega nature,” he replied impishly.

“Oh, you just wait, Mister!” teased Gregory. He scooped up their plates, pausing to kiss Mycroft on the cheek, then dumped everything into the sink. “Sleep. The worst is yet to come.”

“Things will be different,” said Mycroft, though he felt no chill signaling Gregory’s distress.

Gregory turned, his smile, nothing short of radiant. “I believe that, Mycroft. Let me check in with Mother, first.”

* * *

**No worries :) GL**

Stamford’s frown deepened as he tapped an icon on his mobile and kept tapping. He shook his head.

“So just one, Doctor Stamford?”

Stamford looked up and blinked, first at the barista in front of him, then at the impatient queue behind him.

“Just one shot of espresso, not two?” repeated the barista, smiling.

“Three, my dear,” he replied with a sigh as he dropped his phone in his pocket. “I’m expecting a call later.”

* * *

“My, my, my.”

His cock was buried deep inside Gregory, and Gregory’s body was wrapped around his, and his name was being chanted, high-pitched and breathy, in his ear.

It was good to be an Alpha.

The round had begun rather traditional, with Gregory, as he called it, ‘assuming the position’ and Mycroft taking him from behind. Now, it was missionary-style, but Mycroft didn’t mind. One need not always swing from a trapeze. Or be in peril of banging one’s head on an ill-placed curve of porcelain. And it gave Mycroft the opportunity of enjoying Gregory’s scent, which seemed to be growing thicker, headier, more intoxicating by the moment, and, he happened to notice that when Gregory had set the room to rights, he’d put the restraints, blindfold and gag, too, in place, just in case they wanted to get adventurous.

Well, they just might.

Mycroft might well fancy putting himself at his Omega’s mercy but, for now, then they were seated, twined together, which was fast becoming one of Mycroft’s favourite positions.

“My, my, my,” chanted Gregory. “It’s kind of funny. I keep saying ‘My’ but I am actually yours.”

Yours.

“Is it okay, Mycroft, if I call myself ‘your Omega’?”

Mycroft’s head was swimming.

Your Omega.

Gregory was clenching ‘round Mycroft’s prick so sweetly and trailing kisses up and down the right side of Mycroft’s neck, from earlobe to shoulder.

“My? I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?”

A thin draught of cold air made the hairs on the nape of Mycroft’s neck stand on end.

“Not at all,” he said quickly. “Of course, you may.”

Then there it was again, a cloud of thick Omega desire filling the room and distracting Mycroft from, well, everything.

Your Omega.

It was a dangerous phrase.

But then the mouth that had been kissing Mycroft was licking, and it seemed the most natural thing, indeed, the most perfect thing, in the world for Mycroft to reciprocate: to kiss, to lick, up and down the left side of Gregory’s neck as their lower bodies remained locked, rocking and coming and fitting so neatly, so perfectly, together.

And then Gregory was biting him playfully. And Mycroft bit back. Gregory sank his teeth into the ridge of Mycroft’s shoulder and Mycroft opened his mouth…

…and his tongue flicked a rough line of a scar tissue.

No!

Mycroft jumped.

“Mycroft?!”

“I’m sorry. I forgot myself for a moment.”

Gregory drew back slightly, and Mycroft could see that his pupils were blown black.

“You could forget yourself entirely. It would be all right with me.”

Mycroft blinked. “What are you saying, Gregory?”

“You’ve been so good to me, Mycroft. Would it be so bad if we bonded?”

That voice. The voice of a playwright’s coquette. Mycroft coughed and blinked again. “Gregory, you don’t want to bond with me.”

“I do. Oh, God, Mycroft, I do.”

Gregory’s scent. Wonderful, lusty, eager. So very eager. Eager to please.

Mycroft shook his head. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Or smelling.

“Gregory, a couple of hours ago…”

“…I wasn’t certain. But now I am. Please, Mycroft.” He squeezed so tight ‘round Mycroft that Mycroft came at once.

“Gregory,” Mycroft groaned. Now he was on his back, looking up. “I fear your judgment is being clouded by…oh, fuck!” He was coming again.

Then Gregory was on top of him, whispering in his ear, his right ear, so that the gland was right there, so close to Mycroft’s mouth.

“I want to be in your life, Mycroft. Don’t you want me in yours?”

Oh, yes. That was precisely what Mycroft wanted. He wanted Gregory in his life. And bonding would, of course, ensure that, wouldn’t it?

“I’d never need look for another Alpha to share my heat.”

Mycroft Holmes was not a jealous man by nature, and perhaps that was why the stab of primeval possessiveness seemed, at once, so overwhelming and so foreign.

Another Alpha? Here? With his Omega? No! A thousand times, no!

He licked his lips and heard himself say, “Okay.”

Oh, the fragrant bouquet of bliss that perfumed the air! It was magical, ethereal. Mycroft spent himself inside Gregory once more and rolled them and put his mouth of Gregory’s shoulder…

…and, again, his tongue touched a scar. And, again, it sobered him.

“No, Gregory. Not like this.”

“But you said ‘yes’!”

Mycroft felt a chill. “I wasn’t myself,” he protested. “We can discuss the whole matter after the heat…”

Gregory pulled back, pulled away.

The chill grew stronger, colder. Mycroft shivered as black eyes shone wet.

“You don’t want me.”

Mycroft was shaking his head before the words were spoken. “It is not that. How can you say that? The past two days have been nothing but desire.”

“Just fucking, then.”

The room was icy. Gregory didn’t seem to notice.

“I care for you, Gregory, deeply.”

“But you don’t want to bond with me.”

“You don’t, either! Not like this!”

“I want it. Please, Mycroft. Your Omega’s asking. Please. You said ‘anything.’”

Mycroft’s mind splintered.

His Omega was asking, and he was refusing. It was sacrilege. He was violating everything…

No, not everything.

A part of him said it was sacrilege and wanted the deed already done and the celebration to commence. A part of him wanted the cold of an Omega’s distress to cease as, awkwardly, his teeth were starting to chatter, and his shivering was threatening to erupt into full-body convulsions. A part of him wanted to believe what Gregory was saying, that he’d changed his mind, and wanted to have a life with Mycroft.

But.

The scars reminded him of his promise. And he would keep it.

“No, I’m sorry, Gregory. I won’t.”

The transformation was so quick but so complete, Mycroft could scarcely believe it.

Gregory’s expression was pure madness. And the room might as well have been the North Pole.

“You don’t want me!”

It was a shriek.

“Not true!” Mycroft protested.

“You don’t want me!”

“Gregory, stop!”

Mycroft reached for him. Gregory jumped off the bed and fled the room.

“Christ!” cried Mycroft, stunned for a moment. Where in the hell was he going? Was he going to run away? Outside? Oh, fuck, the lake!

Mycroft sprang then, stopped in the doorway.

At the point of the blade.

* * *

“Gregory, put down the knife.”

“No!”

Mycroft raised his hands and his gaze. He didn’t recognise the person before him. And the knife seemed enormous. He stepped backwards until he hit the bed and sat. “You will not hurt me, Gregory. There’s not a shred of violence in you.”

“You’re right. And you’re wrong. You don’t want me. And the knife’s not for you.”

“NO!”

“OUT! I WANT THE BLOODY THIING OUT! CUT IT OUT OF ME, MYCROFT, PLEASE! YOU DON’T WANT ME, WHAT GOOD IS IT?”

It took much longer than it should have for Mycroft to seize the knife and throw it against the wall. Then he wrestled Gregory to the bed and used the restraints to secure him to the bed.

“CUT IT OUT OF ME, MYCROFT!”

“Absolutely not,” panted Mycroft, amazed at his own success. There must be something in the ‘Alpha strength’ nonsense he’d read about; his field days were long behind him.

Gregory’s gaze was fixed on the knife where it had fallen, and he screamed incoherently as he fought the restraints.

“Gregory,” said Mycroft softly. “Calm yourself, please.”

“No.” Then Gregory’s eyes went to Mycroft and softened. “Please, Mycroft. Please bond with me.”

“I care for you, deeply, Gregory, but…”

Gregory shook his head, looked away as tears began to fall. Mycroft crawled slowly towards him and kissed the tears, his heart shattering.

Then Gregory lunged, his teeth bared, and Mycroft jumped back, his shattered heart now, apparently, miraculously glued back together and pounding in his chest.

Gregory threw his head back and screamed.

And screamed. And screamed.

* * *

“Dear God, forgive, me,” whispered Mycroft as he tied the gag, but he could see in eyes that used to be brown there would be no forgiveness. He’d kept his promise, and he’d kept Gregory safe, but he knew that a future for Gregory and him as anything but strangers had gone up in smoke. He knew it just as he knew that he had to put some clothes on before hypothermia set in.

But as Mycroft donned the brown pyjamas, he realised something even more disturbing than Gregory’s condition.

Mycroft was hard. Very hard.

He looked at Gregory, whose expression fluctuated between pleading and furious. His legs were open, and his cunt winking. Or rather gasping like a fish on land.

Good Lord.

The heat was still in progress.

What to do?

It would be wrong to take Gregory like this, and yet Mycroft remembered the Omega distress at the beginning of the first round. To allow Gregory to suffer that horror again would also be wrong.

“What do I do, Gregory? Shall I…?”

He tried to meet Gregory’s gaze, but Gregory only had eyes for the knife. He made no response when Mycroft placed the blindfold on him. Nor when Mycroft crawled carefully onto the bed. Nor when Mycroft fucked him to sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _But if you try some time you find_  
>  _You get what you need_  
>  "You can't always get what you want." (1969)

Lestrade woke to pain.

And shame.

He was unrestrained, but his limbs ached so that he was still, practically-speaking, immobilised.

Mycroft was asleep in a chair by the bed, wrapped in some sort of white fuzzy shapeless robe.

When he opened his eyes, Lestrade turned away.

“The restraints were never for you, Mycroft,” he croaked, then began to weep.

“I called Stamford.”

The words fell like a guillotine blade, but Lestrade forced a reply.

“You did the right thing, Mycroft. Thank you for everything. I hate to part like this, but…”

“I’m not leaving!”

Lestrade turned. “Aren’t you? If I were you, I’d put as much distance between you and me as possible. I could’ve hurt you!”

“You wouldn’t have hurt me. You’ve would’ve hurt yourself.”

“I might have convinced you to bond with me! And that would’ve hurt both of us. It’s not enough to say I’m sorry, but, God knows, I am.”

“You tried to tell me.”

“I thought that if you were different, I’d be different, too.”

“Doctor Stamford and Sherlock also tried to warn me, but I believed they were warning me against hurting you. I should’ve known when I saw the scars…” He sighed. “Doctor Stamford was supremely sympathetic and ruthlessly castigating.”

Lestrade almost smiled. “That’s his specialty.”

“Answer me this, Gregory. ‘Your Omega’?”

“I’m not your Omega! I’m not anyone’s Omega! I’m me. You’re you.”

Mycroft smiled a weary smile. “I made the right choice.”

Lestrade stared. “Of course, you did! You did beautifully, Mycroft. Your brother pissed himself, by the way, when I splintered a chair and used a piece to shatter a mirror, so, yeah, you handled everything perfectly.”

“Even,” Mycroft grimaced, “continuing with the…” He waved a hand at the bed.

“Yes! You can’t imagine the pain I’d have been in if you stopped fucking me!” Lestrade sighed. “But I wouldn’t blame you if you bailed, Mycroft. I wouldn’t. I’m too much.”

“Gregory, since you fell asleep, I’ve been trying to sort through everything, trying to find the truth in the half-truths and maybes and outright lies, and there’s only one truth for me. You aren’t my Omega, but _I am your Alpha_.”

Lestrade shivered.

“I am your Alpha in the sense that I don’t want any other Omega in my life, and in the sense that I would like to finish this heat with and I’d like to be your partner for future heats. I’d like to be colleagues and friend and lovers. But those are all maybes and will take time to discover, but for now, I’d like the opportunity to show you that I can be your Alpha.”

“Even after everything I’ve done…”

Mycroft nodded.

Lestrade blinked back the tears. “I’d like you to be my Alpha, Mycroft.” He tried to push up, but his arms didn’t seem to want to work. “Help.”

Mycroft scooped him up in his arms and they settled on the bed together, holding each other.

“Excellent,” said Mycroft eventually, as he tried to shuck out of his robe. “It also resolves a slight thermodynamic problem I have when you’re distressed.”

“You get cold!” cried Lestrade.

“Yes! So you’ve noticed?”

“Don’t tell John. He’ll think we have a Stamford bond, that bondless bond that he and Sherlock have. Your anxiety smells like tobacco smoke. I smelled it earlier, but the Omega was too enraged. Um, Mycroft, what is this?” Lestrade nodded at the robe.

“My assistant’s idea of amusement.” He flipped the hood up, and two round white-and-black ears appeared as well as a snout.

“It’s a polar bear snuggie!”

“Yes,” Mycroft grumbled. “It was the only garment of its kind available.”

“There wasn’t one for me?”

Mycroft smiled. “The other one’s a squirrel.”

Lestrade laughed. “Sneaky squirrel!” He gently put his hand on either side of Mycroft’s face. “You did the right thing. I could not ask for a better Alpha. Thank you.”

Mycroft swallowed, then said, “You’re very welcome.” Then he yawned.

Lestrade caressed his cheek. “Rest. I’ll have a wash, check in with Stamford and join you.”

“There’s another round?”

“Yeah. If it happens at all, it will be very short. And nothing unusual has ever happened in the fourth round.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Let's bury the hatchet_  
>  _Wipe out the past_  
>  _Make love together_  
>  _Stay on the path_  
>  "Mixed Emotions" (1989)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters to go! And this will probably be the last of the smut. I haven't decided if there will be any smut in the next chapter but the last will be a bit of silly coda, as is my wont.

Mycroft woke to pleasure.

He had the sensation of having been dreaming an especially erotic dream and waking just before climax. But rather than dissipating, the dream seemed to come into sharper focus with time and alertness.

A warm, wet hungry mouth was sucking Mycroft’s prick. Mycroft smiled and thrust minutely to let the beautiful creature hidden beneath the covers known that the object of his ministrations was now more than an unconscious, passive participant in the pleasuring.

Mycroft shifted and got a second surprise.

A finger was sunk deep in his arse.

He must have been sleeping the sleep of the dead to not have been awakened by its insertion, but he was so aroused by the joint pleasures, forward into the mouth, backwards upon the digit, that he spent himself at once.

His smile widened at the soft, choking noise of his lover, still a mysterious presence beneath duvet and sheet, swallowing and spitting his ejaculate.

Mycroft then expected a head to surface, but no. The mouth was sucking, biting, cresting his hip, like a sea creature dancing across the ocean floor, and he was being guided by strong hands onto his stomach.

“Oh, God,” he moaned into the pillow before the lips ever touched his rim. And by the time the tongue was teasing the inside of him, he was keening and rutting into the bed. He made a nice little puddle beneath himself and then kisses were being trailed up his spine.

Finally, the mouth, attached to a head, reached Mycroft’s neck, just as Mycroft was being mounted and a prickhead was making Mycroft’s poor sphincters burn with breeching.

“Oh, God, My. I can’t wait until the next heat.”

Mycroft hummed and lifted his arse, arching into Gregory’s cock as well as the lovely notion that underlay his statement.

The next heat. They would spend Gregory’s next heat together. It was settled in Gregory’s mind, so settled that he was already anticipating it. Warmly

Gregory paused in his assault on Mycroft’s to and whisper, “Such a naughty Alpha.”

The playful tone stoked Mycroft’s lust. He arched again and said, “Until then, I shall procure a device that will allow me to remain open and ready for you.”

“Fuck, yeah,” groaned Lestrade and bit his shoulder. “I want you plugged for the whole heat. _Fuck, fuck, fuck_. You fuck me, I’ll turn you over and return the favour, back and forth until…oh, God, My. I love fucking you. I love mounting you and riding you and coming inside you.”

As he thrust, Mycroft grinned. “I’m such a bitch in heat, Gregory…”

“Fuck, yeah.”

“…such a cockslut…”

“Oh, God, My, and lovely one at that.”

“…a little cum-whore.”

That was it.

Gregory was pissing hot streams of come into Mycroft’s arse, and Mycroft was grinning, reveling in the sensation. Then Gregory pulled out and flew to the washbasin, giving himself a quick, but efficient scrub from head to cock.

“I need a bit of the old fashioned,” he said hastily as he returned to the bed.

Mycroft rolled onto his back and threw off the rest of the covers. He welcomed Gregory onto his cock.

Now he could study Gregory’s torso with undisguised admiration and say, without embarrassment,

“You’re quite sexy, Gregory.”

Gregory blushed and rubbed a hand across his own chest. “I might take a bit better care of myself now that I know a handsome, thick-cocked Alpha will be waiting on me. You know, eat a veg or two, maybe break a sweat at something other than riding this exquisite prick. Oh, fuck, My, yeah.”

Mycroft was coming again, of course, shooting like a fountain. “The only thing I have a taste for at the moment,” he said, “is your clit.”

“Yes!” Gregory sprang off Mycroft’s cock and crawled on his knees towards Mycroft’s head.

Mycroft grabbed Lestrade’s buttocks to steady him, and then he went to work suckling the tiny bud, with tongue and lips, bringing Gregory to climax thrice, before he heard his name.

“My?”

Mycroft gave the clit a sweet lick. “Mm?”

“There’s one thing the Omega and I both want, before, you know, the pheromones fade and make me a creaky old man again.”

“Mm?”

Brown eyes looked down. “Your whole hand.”

Mycroft looked up. “Only if I can suck your cock.”

“Fuck, yeah.”

Twice.

Gregory had come down Mycroft’s throat twice.

Brown eyes were hazy. “You’re incredible. The things you do to me.”

Mycroft gently turned his wrist and watched Gregory’s mouth drop open in a silent scream. His feet were on the bed, his knees bent and splayed.

“You’re so gorgeous, Gregory, taking my fist, taking my cock.”

Finally, Gregory looked down at him, through half-lidded eyes and growled,

“I’m such a bitch in heat, My…”

“Indeed.”

“…such a cockslut…”

“It would appear so.”

“…a little cum-whore.”

That was it.

Mycroft quickly, but gently, removed his hand and mounted Gregory and fucked him. Gregory’s cunt clenched around Mycroft’s prick tighter, or so it seemed to Mycroft, than ever before.

Mycroft thrust hard and deep. Gregory’s voice was in his ear.

“Harder and deeper. More. Like you’re going to split me in two, yeah?”

Mycroft obliged until Gregory let out a sharp scream.

A very different kind of scream.

“It’s good, it’s good, My,” Gregory panted, expelling breath noisily whilst hastening to reassure, but his shaky voice still worried Mycroft. He continued, “Oh, God, you don’t do anything by half measures, do you, you beast? You can ease up a bit, My, if you want. Or not!” He chuckled. “I’ll take everything you give me, you stud. I didn’t think you could get any deeper, but bloody hell…”

“I’m not moving, Gregory.”

But that wasn’t entirely true.

Something was moving.

Or rather, growing.

“What?” breathed Gregory. He looked down and licked his lips, blinking rapidly. “My, I can feel you. You’re still pushing inside. It’s,” he pinched his eyes, “a beautiful, beautiful burn. OH!”

“Gregory!”

Now Mycroft was thoroughly alarmed.

He was coming. And coming. And coming…

Gregory’s breath was ragged, coarse. He slapped his own neck clumsily.

“I didn’t bond with you, Gregory!”

“That’s what I thought, but My, tell me this, oh, sweet Jesus.” He kissed Mycroft’s lips. “Oh, fuck, baby. I think, and I don’t know, it’s never happened before, and it’s not supposed to happen like this, but I think we may be knotted.”

“What?!”

“Can you move? Just wiggle. Just a bit. Not hard, or you’ll hurt me.”

Mycroft tried to pull out.

“TOO HARD, MY!”

Mycroft stopped. “I’m stuck!” he cried. “I’m sorry, Gregory.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Ten, maybe, twenty minutes and it’ll go down.” He kissed Mycroft’s lips again. “It feels wonderful, but it won’t, you know, do anything. All male Omegas are sterile.”

“Are you certain it will subside?”

Gregory chuckled, which set off another round of Mycroft’s ejaculations.

“Oh, piss that come into me, baby. I may not be able to give you a baby, but, fuck, if I don’t want every last drop of that come. Yeah, it’ll go down, or so the books say, but, Christ, I’ll miss it when it goes.” His hands were roaming across Mycroft’s chest, rubbing him, caressing him, toying with his nipples.

Mycroft’s anxiety ebbed.

“You like having ‘em sucked?” asked Gregory as he pinched.

“I don’t know,” said Mycroft truthfully. “But I’d like to find out.” He bent forward.

“OH, FUCK!”

Mycroft was still coming when Gregory clamped his mouth around the already-pebbled bud and still coming when he let Gregory know that he liked having his nipples sucked very much and asked, very sweetly, if Gregory could he see his way to bestowing the same attention on the other side.

“I need to scent you, My. I’m certain there’s a great evolutionary purpose to it, but basically, I just need to rub, as well as I can in this position, like a cat against you.”

Mycroft’s need for Gregory was just as great.

Not the need to bond, per se, but a raw need for him.

Gregory nuzzled and writhed and caressed every inch of Mycroft’s body that he could reach. Buttocks, thighs, back, arms, fingers, neck, head. Kissing, rubbing, murmuring softly, grunting. Gregory’s scent was exquisite, and everything was warm and rich and wonderful. He petted Mycroft until Mycroft began to purr.

“That’s it, that’s it, my Alpha,” sighed Gregory as Mycroft came.

Then the heat lifted.

Mycroft felt the tension in his body drain, and his erection flag.

Gregory’s scent faded, and he groaned a groan of physical discomfort, not pleasure, as Mycroft withdrew his cock. “Well, that’s the show, kids,” he said wearily.

Mycroft feared the loss of the intimacy, which seemed to be evaporating with the pheromone-fog, but then Gregory asked,

“Any idea what time it is?”

Mycroft reached for his robe and found his mobile in a pocket. “Half four.”

“In the afternoon?”

“No, in the morning.”

“Christ! Well, we needn’t get up yet,” he said with a smile.

Mycroft returned the smile. “No reason at all, but, uh…” He was laying in a large, cold, wet spot.

“Right. Wash. Change the bed. Then a post-heat cuddle and snog?” suggested Gregory.

“Capital plan.”

* * *

Mycroft watched Gregory sleep. His cock was half-hard again from the kissing and petting and exchange of murmured endearments that had transpired when they’d both returned to bed, but he ignored it. He wanted to savour this moment, this bliss unadulterated by pheromones or the stress of the outside world, to maintain this state of cloistered sanctuary at least until the sun rose.

It seemed Gregory’s opinion of him had permanently changed, and that they were going to be in each other’s lives in some capacity going forward. Affection was, perhaps, cooler than during the heat but it was also becoming more manageable, more real, more sustainable, perhaps, once the demands of work and life returned.

Mycroft leaned down and kissed Gregory’s cheek; Gregory grunted and nestled closer. Mycroft smiled and thought of lovers and nightingales and larks.

Gregory drained the last of his coffee, then set the cup down on the table with a sigh. He was still, Mycroft noted with glee, shirtless. “You know, I’ve never even looked outside,” he said as he stood and crossed to the large window in the sitting room.

He yanked the curtains aside and gasped.

“Oh, my God.”

The view of the small lake and surrounding woods was, Mycroft thought, splendid.

“I noticed that it has been the screensaver on your mobile for some time,” said Mycroft. “I assumed you had a sentimental attachment.”

Gregory laughed. “Two years ago, the Yard got new computers. The IT company gave us all calendars. This,” he waved at the scene, “was March. I just thought it looked like a nice place, I never dreamed…”

He looked at Mycroft and exhaled. “You are magnificent, do you know that?”

Mycroft thought his heart would burst. He waved a hand, then hid at least half of his pink face in his mug.

“We don’t have to go back right away, do we? It’s a great day to take a walk.”

“Yes, of course. There are paths around the lake. We could do a whole tour.”

“Great!” exclaimed Gregory and then he strode swiftly and surely toward Mycroft and kissed him hard on the lips. “Fucking perfect!”

And Mycroft couldn’t agree more.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _But it's all right now._  
>  "Jumpin' Jack Flash" (1968)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to all my gentle readers who've taken this journey with me! I appreciate all the encouragement! Of this fic, there's only a very short, very silly coda left.

Lestrade smiled.

At the blue lake. At the cool crisp of the early spring morning. At the birdsong in the trees above.

How life changed! It almost hurt to think of all the changes that had occurred in the past few days.

The amnesia that usually accompanied the end of the heat was different, too. Lestrade could remember almost every moment of his time with Mycroft in the cottage, but he’d almost forgotten entirely that he’d been kidnapped, taken hostage and found in a rotting log, a log just like the one that he was sitting on as he waited for Mycroft to emerge from the cottage.

Mycroft had said he had some business to attend, and Lestrade had taken the opportunity to check in with Stamford, who was, by turns, relieved, censorious, and flabbergasted by all that Lestrade told him. Stamford had no ready answers about the knotting, but he, of course, wanted to see Lestrade as soon as he returned to London.

But the return to London, to work, to life, could wait.

For now, Lestrade wanted to walk, hand-in-hand, around this beautiful lake with his…

…boyfriend? Christ. That didn’t seem right. Friend? Acquaintance? Partner? Every word was either too much or too little or not quite right.

His…

…Alpha.

That would do. For now.

Lestrade wanted to take a walk with his Alpha, an Alpha whom Lestrade could now smell approaching before he even came into sight.

“Apologies,” said Mycroft.

Lestrade stood and turned and smiled. He knew, without knowing how he knew, just what Mycroft had been up to.

“You bought me a very expensive gift.”

Mycroft’s eyes widened. “Did you overhear?”

Lestrade shook his head. “No, and it wasn’t a Sherlock thing,” he snapped his fingers, “not a deduction. It was just sort of a feeling.”

Mycroft’s eyebrows rose. “Interesting. Well, nothing’s final yet. I simply initiated the purchase of the cottage.”

“You bought it!”

“I am buying it—and a small portion of the surrounding. In your name. Or ours, if you prefer.”

Lestrade jaw dropped. He blinked.

Mycroft studied the ground and shrugged. “I’m rather old fashioned, Gregory. I suppose I court in a rather old-fashioned way.”

“With property!” cried Lestrade in disbelief.

“Yes,” said Mycroft, raising his gaze, looking sheepishly adorable.

“Well, well,” said Lestrade, looking at the lake and the cottage and the path that led further into the shaded wood. “How ‘bout a walk?”

He offered Mycroft his arm, and Mycroft took it eagerly.

* * *

They’d almost made a complete loop, when Lestrade stopped and just stared at the water. Mycroft pressed himself to Lestrade’s back and wrapped his arms around Lestrade’s chest and squeezed gently.

“You know, the first time I met John, he told me I had a pair of wrecking balls. He’d seen us in the warehouse, and he said he’d never met an Omega who confronted an Alpha like I confronted you. But the thing about wrecking balls is that they wreck all the time and sometimes you’re too busy fighting and lashing out to notice that not everything needs to be wrecked and that sometimes the only thing you’re wrecking is yourself. I knew I wasn’t an ordinary Omega, so I never looked for an Alpha. I thought maybe I’d be happy with a normal beta-life with Beth, and that didn’t work because I’m not a beta and because I’m not the kind of husband who comes home every night. I didn’t think there was any other option but work myself into any early grave, but now, I don’t want to wreck things, I want to put them back together—with you.”

“I’ve never had the luxury of thinking I was normal, Gregory, but being an Alpha was a small footnote compared to the other unconventionalities. I constructed a life for myself thinking I would be always be alone. And then I met you. And that insidious thought that there might actually be someone with whom I’d like to share this lonely life occurred. I’ve ignored it, but it’s never fully left me.”

Lestrade smiled. “That date? Dinner and film?”

“Are you free this evening?”

“I am, as a matter of fact.”

“Wonderful.” Mycroft pressed his lips to the side of Lestrade’s neck. “And, as a matter of record, should things run late, there are guestrooms, of course, but you’re always welcome in the master bedroom.”

“Oh, yeah?” Lestrade was pleasantly surprised at how his body responded to the suggestion. His libido usually went into hibernation for a while after a heat, but that didn’t seem to be the case now. He turned, and their lips met. When the kiss broke, Lestrade gasped,

“That isn’t the heat.”

“No, indeed,” whispered Mycroft before he covered Lestrade’s mouth with his own once more.

Lestrade curled his arms around Mycroft’s neck. Mycroft unbuttoned his coat and welcomed Lestrade closer. Lestrade sunk his hands in Mycroft’s pockets, somehow knowing he would find a small bottle of lubricant in one and a pair of handkerchiefs in the other.

“Preparation, not presumption,” explained Mycroft.

“So if I asked you to take my cock out and stroke me to coming right here, you’d be ready?”

“Exactly. And if you, too, noticed that very secluded spot some thirty paces behind us where trousers might be lowered, and stiff pricks might carefully and gently be inserted in tight cunts and even tighter arses, well, I’d be ready for that as well.”

“Oh, God. But you know what I want to do?”

Mycroft squinted. “Oh, Gregory. You want to make us wait.”

“Until our date.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

“There’s the drive back to London, which I think, given the circumstances, should commence forthwith,” said Mycroft.

“Yeah, let’s get our story started—but, oh, wait! I should make a call.”

Their eyes met.

“Mind if I join you?” asked Mycroft. “There’s something I want to say, too.”

“Not at all.”

Mycroft offered Lestrade his arm. Lestrade took it and they walked together back to the cottage.


	14. Chapter 14

John’s mobile rang.

Sherlock hadn’t heard it, but he felt it, or rather, he felt the break in the noxious atmosphere that had pervaded 221B Baker Street for days. By the time that he removed his earphones and his goggles and his rubber gloves, he could hear John’s cry.

“IT’S HIM, SHERLOCK! IT’S HIM, SHERLOCK!”

John’s excitement lit the air like fireworks. He raced into the room, then halted abruptly and with a dramatic gesture clicked on the screen.

“Hey, Greg,” he said with false nonchalance. “How are things?”

**_“Good. Heat’s over, and I promised I’d call. We’re packing up to return to London.”_ **

John nodded. “You’re on speakerphone. Sherlock’s here.”

**_“Yeah, that’s fine. You’ll just tell him everything, anyway. And, uh, his brother wants to speak to him in a bit.”_ **

Sherlock and John looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

“So, how’d it go?” asked John, now allowing his eagerness to bleed into his tone.

**_“Good. Great, actually. I think I owe you an apology. Well, maybe not an apology, but an acknowledgement. I think you were right about Mycroft. And me, that is.”_ **

John began to jump up and down, silently screaming, ‘I TOLD YOU SO! I TOLD YOU SO!’

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but when John began to punch the air in victorious fashion, Sherlock plucked the phone from John’s hand and placed it safely on the kitchen table.

Finally, John calmed enough to say, “So, it’s none of my business…”

Sherlock waved his hands and mouthed, ‘IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, JOHN!’

“…but I gotta ask: do you have a Stamford bond?”

**_“I don’t know. I suppose we’ll have to see the man himself about that…”_ **

“Do you have normal bond?!” asked John, his voice rising.

Sherlock mouthed, ‘STILL NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!’                                                   

**_“No, no, that didn’t happen.”_ **

Sherlock smiled and nodded and muttered under his breath, “Good job, Mycroft.”

“But how about, you know, a sort telepathy?” persisted John.

**_“Uh, yeah. A bit.”_ **

“After the heat?” asked John.

**_“Yeah, at least on my part. But, I mean, who can tell with Mycroft? He knows everything anyway.”_ **

“Yeah, genius is a confounder, but any kind of weird—?”

**_“Yeah, I mean, Mycroft had this hot/cold thing during the heat. I don’t know if it’s still going on…oh, wait, he’s nodding…yeah, so he’s got a bit of something.”_ **

“You need to get tested. Both of you,” said John. “There might be other things…”

**_“Well, there was one thing…”_ **

“Yeah?”

**_“I don’t know…oh, well, okay, Mycroft says it’s okay to tell you…um, we knotted.”_ **

“WHAT?!” screamed John. He stared at Sherlock, who was staring back at him. “But you didn’t bond?”

**_“Nope. It was weird. And great, of course. But, yeah, weird.”_ **

John made a ‘big belly’ gesture and mouthed, ‘BABY?!’

Sherlock waved his hands frantically and mouthed back, ‘NO!’

‘MAYBE?’ queried John.

‘SCIENCE, JOHN!’ insisted Sherlock.

Then John shot a look, which which to the casual observer meant nothing, but to its recipient meant ‘you stuck your tongue in my arse for science, Sherlock.’

**_“…I don’t what it means, but I’ve changed my opinion about Mycroft and I think we’re going to be spending some time together and getting to know each other and definitely for the next heat, he’s the one I want. So that’s the news.”_ **

“That’s great, Greg,” said John. “Really great. Um, so the bad news here is that Moran escaped custody and vanished.”

**_“Fuck! Really?”_ **

“Yeah.”

**_“Any leads?”_ **

“Unfortunately, no,” said Sherlock. “Your colleagues are out of their league and I’ve been a bit distracted.” He shot John a look.

John looked sheepish and mouthed, ‘Sorry. I was worried about them.’

Sherlock waved a dismissive hand, then he wrapped his arms around John and kissed the top of his head.

**_“Uh, well, I’ll start dealing with all that tomorrow, yeah? Maybe we should get a pint later in the week, John. All right, that’s me, uh, Sherlock, here’s Mycroft.”_ **

**_“Sherlock.”_ **

“Brother Mine,” said Sherlock with a smile. “I’m please to hear that things went well.”

**_“Thank you. They exceeded all expectations, but I owe you an acknowledgement, two, in fact. I did not understand what you were trying to tell me in our first conversation about Omega heats. I do now. To my folly, I did not anticipate such subtlety and sensitivity from you. I apologise for my prejudice.”_ **

John looked up, staring, wide-eyed.

“Don’t mention it,” said Sherlock, grinning blithely.

**_“And as corollary, I also devalued the expertise required of your last position of employment. I shall not again.”_ **

“Whore’s work is hard work,” said Sherlock. Then he added, “Good luck, Mycroft.”

**_“Good bye, Sherlock.”_ **

“YES!” screamed John as Sherlock ended the call. He then broke away from Sherlock and did a little dance about the sitting room, singing, “Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a…”

“John.”

“Do you think they could have a baby, Sherlock?”

“No! In that case, Lestrade would be in danger of impregnating himself.”

John hummed. “Ah, well.” He took in Sherlock’s alarmed expression. “Not for us, idiot! But I think your brother and Lestrade would make good parents.”

“They could adopt.”

“True. They’re going to get together. I can feel it.”

“They already are, John. Two apologies in one day? How shall we usher in this age of miracles?”

They looked at each other and smiled and spoke at the same time,

“Slip-N-Slide!”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
